UBRA*
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
T?sn
THE
LIFE AND LETTERS
OF THE REVEREND
ADAM SEDGWICK
VOLUME II.
C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
OCambritjge: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.
ILeipJtg: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
ADAM SEDGWICK, /ET. 82.
From a crayon drawing by Lowes Dickinson, in tlu
Woodwardian Museu m .
Frontispiece to Vol. II.
THE
LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
THE REVEREND
ADAM SEDGWICK,
LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.,
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
PREBENDARY OF NORWICH,
WOODWARDIAN PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY, 18181873.
BY
JOHN WILLIS CLARK, M.A. F.S.A.
FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY
MUSEUM OF ZOOLOGY AND COMPARATIVE ANATOMY,
AND
THOMAS M C KENNY HUGHES,
M.A. TRIN. COLL. F.R.S. F.S.A. F.G.S.
PROFESSORIAL FELLOW OF CLARE COLLEGE,
WOODWARDIAN PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY.
VOLUME II.
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1890
{The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserve
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
Cambttoge :
PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
CONTENTS
OF THE
SECOND VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
(18401843.)
Domestic side of Sedgwick's character. Explorations at Bartlow. Death of
Dr Ainger. Contested election for High Steward. Agassiz and the glacial
theory. New Geological Museum. Count Miinster's collection. Difficulties
of Church membership. Professor Smyth's lectures (1840). British Associa-
tion at Plymouth. Geology in Ireland and Scotland. Whewell Master of
Trinity. Plesiosaurus from Whitby (1841). Revision of College statutes.
Letters to Wordsworth. British Association at Manchester. Geology in
North Wales (1842). Blowing up of Dover Cliff. Geology in North Wales.
Queen's Visit to Cambridge (1843) pp. 167.
CHAPTER II.
(18441849.)
Invitation to British Association. Meeting at York. Controversy with Dean
Cockburn (1844). Article in Edinburgh Review. British Association at
Cambridge. Elected Vice-Master of Trinity College. Geology in Lake
Land. Quarrel with Dr Whewell (1845). Geology in North Wales (1846).
Long illness. Prince Albert elected Chancellor. Sedgwick appointed his
Secretary. Sir Harry Smith at Whittlesea. Installation of the Prince.
Visit to Osborne (1847). Geology in Scotland. Lecture at Ipswich (1848).
Jenny Lind. Trial of Rush. Accident. British Association at Birmingham.
Death of Bishop Stanley. Breaks right arm (1849). . . pp. 68 166.
vi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry. Sedgwick asked to be a Commissioner.
His hesitation. British Association at Edinburgh. Visits Duke of Argyle.
Fifth Edition of his Discourse (1850). Receives the Wollaston medal.
Account of his Geological Work since 1838. Geological tour in Cornwall
and North Wales (1851). Estrangement from Murchison. Action of the
Council of the Geological Society. Visits the Queen at Osborne. Publication
of Commission Report (1852) pp. 167229.
CHAPTER IV.
(1852-1855.)
Domestic life. Funeral of the Duke of Wellington. Lectures at Leeds (1852).
Refuses Deanery of Peterborough. Fifth Letter on Geology of Lake Land.
Naval Review. Geology in Wales. British Association at Hull. Visit of
the Duke of Brabant. Death of Dr Mill (1853). Archaeological Institute at
Cambridge. Geology in Wales. British Association at Liverpool (1854).
Proposed Parliamentary Commission. British Association at Glasgow.
Tour in Scotland. Lecture at Kendal. Publication of British Paleozoic rocks
and fossils (1855). General Criticism of his Geological Work (1851 1855).
pp. 230310.
CHAPTER V.
(18561862.)
Death of Margaret Sedgwick. Jenny Lind at Norwich. Image and Hawkins
Collections. Lucas Barrett. British Association at Cheltenham. Recollec-
tions of Sir J. Malcolm (1856). Dr Livingstone at Cambridge. Last Lecture
(1857). Eclipse of the Sun. New Collegiate Statutes. Last Lecture (1858).
Death of John Sedgwick. British Association at Aberdeen. Darwin's Origin
of Species (1859). Lecture on Geology of Cambridgeshire. Honorary
Degree at Oxford (1860). Visit from Mrs Livingstone. The American
Sedgwicks. Death of Henslow. British Association at Manchester. Last
Lecture. Death of Prince Albert (1861). American War. Visit to the
Queen. British Association at Cambridge. Resigns Vice-Mastership of
Trinity College (1862) pp. 311 384.
CHAPTER VI.
(18631869.)
Receives Copley Medal of Royal Society (1863). Royal Visit to Cambridge.
Death of Mr Romilly (1864). Foundation of Sedgwick Prize. Symptoms of
heart-disease. Visit from Dr Livingstone (1865). American Lectureship.
Death of Whewell. Honorary Degree at Cambridge (1866). Tour in West
of England (1867). Memorial by the Trustees of Cowgill Chapel. Fiftieth
course of Lectures (1868). Death of Lady Murchison (1869). pp. 385 451.
CONTENTS. vii
CHAPTER VII.
(18701873.)
Severe attack of bronchitis. Last visit to Dent. Speech at Norwich. Fifty-
second course of Lectures (1870). Employments of his old age. Last
dinner-party. Purchase of Leckenby collection (1871). Interest in the
Museum. Preface to Baiter's Catalogue (1872). Last weeks. Death and
Funeral. Dean Stanley's sermon. Memorial at Cambridge. Memorial at
Dent (1873).
Personal appearance. Portraits. Lectures. Keminiscences of daily life.
pp. 452501.
CHAPTER VIII.
Sedgwick's Geological work pp. 502 563.
CHAPTER IX.
Sedgwick's life at Norwich. 18341873. By the Rev. C. K. Robinson, D.D.
Master of S. Catharine's College, and Prebendary of Norwich, pp. 564 590.
LIST OF SEDGWICK'S WORKS 591 604
LIST OF SEDGWICK'S PORTRAITS. 605
INDEX 607640
CHAPTER I.
(18401843.)
DOMESTIC SIDE OF SEDGWICK'S CHARACTER. EXPLORATIONS AT
BARTLOW. DEATH OF DR AINGER. CONTESTED ELECTION
\ FOR HIGH STEWARD. AGASSIZ AND THE GLACIAL THEORY.
NEW GEOLOGICAL MUSEUM. COUNT MUNSTER'S COLLECTION.
DIFFICULTIES OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP. PROFESSOR SMYTH'S
LECTURES (1840). BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT PLYMOUTH.
GEOLOGY IN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND. WHEWELL MASTER
OF TRINITY. PLESIOSAURUS FROM WHITBY (1841). REVISION
OF COLLEGE STATUTES. LETTERS TO WORDSWORTH. BRITISH
ASSOCIATION AT MANCHESTER. GEOLOGY IN N. WALES.
(1842). BLOWING UP OF DOVER CLIFF. GEOLOGY IN
N. WALES. QUEEN'S VISIT TO CAMBRIDGE (1843).
WERE it desirable to divide Sedgwick's life into periods,
according to his special interests and occupations, it might be
said that we were now entering upon the domestic period just
as the years between 1818 and 1840 might be called the
geological period. Without, however, insisting upon such
sharply defined subdivisions, which would only lead to
erroneous conclusions, it must be admitted that from 1840
onwards he devoted a considerable portion of his time and
attention to his two nieces. He did his best to form their
characters and direct their studies by regular correspondence;
and, during his periods of residence at Norwich, one or both
S. II. i
DEATH OF EMMA SEDGWICK.
1840. usually resided with him. While under his roof, no father
Et. 55. could have shewn more tender solicitude for a favourite child,
or taken greater pains to provide everything -books, music,
exercise, society that a young lady could possibly require
for her instruction, amusement, and health.
A death in the family circle at Dent determined Sedgwick's
first invitation to his niece Isabella. In February, 1840, his
brother John had the misfortune to lose his second daughter,
Emma. Sedgwick was deeply afflicted by the fatal termination
of a long illness which does not seem to have been thought
dangerous. " I greatly pity the father and mother," he wrote *,
" and still more poor Isabella, who has lost the companion of
her childhood and only sister ; and I did not think that
such an event could have given me such deep pain as it has
done." To his sister-in-law, writing on the day of the funeral,
he said : " What a beautiful sunny day it is ! And yet this is
a gloomy day at the dear old parsonage of Dent, which I still
look to as my home, for, if I understand my brother right, the
last mournful office is to be performed over the remains of the
dear child this very day. Oh ! that I could transport myself
to your fire-side, and mourn with you and your children !
How does poor Isabella bear up? I pity her very much....
Should it be God's will ever to deprive her of her present
home while I am living, in that case (if she has no better home)
she shall live with me, and I will love her as much as if I were
her father 2 ."
To Isabella herself he addressed a letter of tender conso-
lation and wise advice, which, long as it is, we reproduce
almost as it was written :
CAMBRIDGE, April $th, 1840.
Dearest Isabella,
I was very glad to see your letter, kindly written so
very soon after your return to Dent ; and the melancholy
expressions in the latter part of it did not surprise me, for they
1 To Rev. W. Ainger, 23 March, 1840.
2 To Mrs Sedgwick, i March, 1840.
CONSOLATION OF OTHERS.
were quite natural. But I am sure you will not sorrow as one 1840.
without hope. And how very light is the grief of a Christian, ^ l - 55-
who believes that he is only parted for a time from those he
loves, and trusts by God's grace to meet them again, where
they will all live for ever in the presence of their Maker and
Saviour!... A death like that of dear Emma is a death
deprived of its worst sting. Not that we are forbidden to
mourn far otherwise. Our religion chastens and regulates
the feelings of our nature, but does not root them out.
When Jesus was at the grave of Lazarus, He wept, and the
Jews said "Behold how He loved him!" And when Paul
quitted his flock at Miletus they wept sore and fell on
his neck and kissed him, sorrowing that they should see his
face no more. If our religion told us not to mourn for our
departed friends it would indeed be hard for beings like
ourselves to obey the precept. But I do trust, my dear
Isabella, that day by day your grief will become subdued, and
that you will soon learn to look back with cheerfulness on the
days you have spent with your sister on her kind words
her kind looks on the thousand little acts of kindness she
did for you and received from you in return. Next to the
consolations of Christian hope the only real consolations
in the pinching hour of trial, I would urge you to exert
yourself strenuously in the performance of the daily duties
that are before you, such as helping your mother in her
household duties, visiting and comforting your neighbours in
distress, attending to the Sunday school, &c. &c. Do all these
things with redoubled zeal, both as points of duty and as a
means, under God's blessing, of keeping off the encroachments
of a morbid and diseased melancholy. Grief sometimes
produces langour and indolence, which are not only bad
in themselves, but tend to perpetuate the very evil in which
they originate. But take care not to run into the other
extreme, and to hurt your health by doing too much ; and do
get into habits of strong exercise. On this point be as resolute
as you can.
CONSOLATION OF OTHERS.
1840. In striving to fix and strengthen your principles, which is
* 55- the great point, strive also day by day and hour by hour to
improve your understanding, and to add to your knowledge.
Your father and mother have given you a good education,
but your whole life, to be good and useful and happy, must be
a life of continued training and education. Be then, as far as
you may, regular and systematic in your studies. Make
yourself well acquainted with Bible history. And, when you
have gone carefully over any portion, (for example the
Patriarchal history of the early books of the Old Testament,
the period of the Judges, or the succession of the Kings) you
may then consult some abridgment such as that given in the
Bishop of Lincoln's book 1 (which my brother has in his
library) in which the events are related systematically. But
never permit such abridgments to usurp the place of the Bible,
only to help you in comprehending it. The same remark
applies to the Jewish customs and stated festivals. Consider
what effect they had on the manners and habits of thought of
the Jewish nation, how well fitted to make them a peculiar
people to whom the oldest oracles of God were committed,
and how every dispensation bears upon another order of
things, when the old law was to be done away as far as it was
ceremonial. In short, learn to understand the old dispensa-
tion as a schoolmaster to lead you to a knowledge of the
Gospel.
From the study of Bible history you must go on to a
study of ancient history, and I know no book better for you to
read than Rollin, and read it in French to keep up your
knowledge of that language, which you must not allow to
slip away from you. I can procure it for you when you want
it. After having read it, or along with it, you may read
certain parts of the Prophetic Books of the Old Testament,
such for example as the passages selected for the daily
lessons of our Church during Advent, Nativity, and Epiphany.
1 Elements of Christian Theology, by G. Tomline, DD., successively Bishop of
Lincoln and Winchester; 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1799.
CONSOLATION OF OTHERS.
These passages lose much by being taken separately. They 1840.
ought to be studied again and again in connexion, and as ^- 55-
bearing on the great events in our Saviour's ministration,
and the propagation of the Gospel...
After some time I should wish you to read some of
the translations of the old historians. I can procure for
you the French translation of Herodotus a very amusing
and most instructive book which will make you acquainted
with several parts of profane history which are more or
less connected with the historical portions of the Bible.
I don't know whether you have a good verbal memory.
I have a very bad one, and I would not wish you to spend
much time on committing passages to memory, if you cannot
do so with ease and comfort to yourself. There are many
beautiful passages in the Psalms which I think you might
commit to memory with advantage ; and if so, pray learn
them from the translation in the Bible, which is far better
and more faithful than that in the Prayer Book. I would
apply the same remark to books of poetry in general. If
you can do so with ease and pleasure, learn by heart short
passages which strike you as very good and beautiful. Now
don't be alarmed because I am talking of so much that
is to be done. I am telling you of the kind of way I should
wish you to train your mind, and speaking of studies that
are to last as long as God spares your faculties, and which
I should wish to be pursued with continued feelings of
comfort and delight. But I will not go on, lest I should
tire you. I do trust you will go on improving in knowledge
and in goodness, and that you will become a well-informed
woman ; but I trust also that you will continue to be
single-hearted, and humble, and charitable in the true
and Christian sense. And God forbid that you should
ever learn to think too well of yourself, and too ill of
those about you. But I will not fear this. Simplicity,
humility, and charity are a woman's best graces.
Instead of going to St Mary's Church we had a sermon in
PLANS FOR HIS NIECES.
1840. our Chapel this morning ; and since I came out I did not
-w 55- think I could do better than have some quiet talk with my
dear niece on grave matters....
Ever most affectionately yours
A. SEDGWICK.
A week later he wrote : " Some time during the month of
June I trust I shall see you all at Dent, and I will try to
persuade you to let Isabella go back with me to Norwich.
This is a capital plan. She shall work hard with me, but it
shall be a work of good-will. For example, while I am at
morning service in the Cathedral she may be taking a music-
lesson, if she likes, of one of the best masters in England 1 .
We will walk together, and drive out together, and perhaps I
may procure a pony for her to accompany me on horseback.
She will see much good society, and I trust she will improve
in health, spirits, and information."
This programme was carried out with complete success,
music, riding, society, and the rest. Sedgwick's residence at
Norwich was this year transferred from the winter to the
summer, and lasted from the middle of July to the end of
September. During the whole time Isabella Sedgwick kept
him company, and the long letters he wrote regularly to Dent
tell how affectionately he looked after her, and watched with
delight the interest taken in her by his friends.
Sedgwick's second niece who, by the way, could only by
courtesy be called his niece now demands a few words.
His brother James, whom we left at Freshwater in the Isle
of Wight, had lost his wife in 1835. In 1838 he married a
widow lady, Mrs Hicks, for whose daughter Fanny Sedgwick
at once conceived a great affection. He commenced a
correspondence with her, just as he did with his own niece
Isabella, from which we shall extract several very graphic
and interesting letters. She was but twelve years old in
1840, and some years therefore elapsed before she too
1 Mr (afterwards Dr) Zachariah Buck, organist of Norwich Cathedral
181977.
PRACTICAL ADVICE.
became a frequent visitor at Norwich. Meanwhile her 1840.
uncle did not forget her mental and social development. ^ 55<
Here is some advice of general application :
To Miss F. Hicks.
DENT, October ytti, 1840.
"Talking of getting by heart, have you a good
verbal memory ? If you have not, improve it, and if you
have, cultivate it, by systematically committing to memory
some beautiful short passage in prose or verse every day of
your life. I say short, because a long task is fatiguing ; but
I wish your labour to be a labour of love. I have Goldsmith's
poems on my table, and you might begin with them, for they
are very sweetly written. If you began this habit, you might
always have something to write about, and you might ask me
now and then for a new lesson, which we might be reading
together though 200 miles asunder. Prose is more difficult
to commit to memory than verse, but there are many
beautiful passages, both in the Old and New Testament, that
I should wish every child of mine, were I blessed with any,
to have by heart. What a pretty expression that is, to have
a thing by heart. It exactly expresses what I mean, that we
should remember beautiful passages because we love them
for the beauty of their language and the goodness of their
sentiments."
To the same.
THORNEY, December 30^, 1 840.
"Rise betimes, Fankin, or you will never get on
with your work. An hour's leisure before others are stirring
(while your head is clear, and your heart as it ought to be) is
worth two hours of elbowing when others are up and about
their own work, jostling you at every turn. Let me see, here
is a copy of Cowper's works. Let me try for a passage or
two before I am interrupted. What do you say to the Report
of an Adjudged case, or Nose v. Eyes ; The Negro s Complaint ;
and, John Gilpin ? The whole poem On the receipt of my
Mother's picture. The Task you should read once fairly
PRACTICAL ADVICE.
1840. through, twice if you like. Then select and commit to
* 55- memory some good passages, for example : Book I., a long
passage beginning, 'Not rural sights alone, but rural sounds',
is very good ; (2) a long passage ' By ceaseless action ', etc. ;
(3) Description of the Gipsy : * I saw a column ', etc. ; (4) a
little farther on are some sweet lines about Omai, the savage
brought to England by Captain Cook. Book II. 'England
with all thy faults I love thee still ', a long and noble passage
well worth the trouble of committing to memory. ' Would I
describe a preacher such as Paul ', etc. another noble passage,
followed by about 30 lines of the next passage against
affectation. I think I have sent you enough for the present.
" In reading Cowper, or any other author, try to connect his
works with his biography. In that way they give you more
pleasure and instruction. Never commit anything to memory
that is not worth remembering, and whatever you undertake
in this way do it thoroughly, so that you may never again
forget it. Most people have very imperfect and hazy ideas
for want of attending to this good rule. Try always to connect
your reading so as to give it meaning and consistency.
Connect a poet's works with his biography, with the history,
as far as may be, of his times. Learn in that way to follow
out your reading. It is ten times more instructive in that
way. When people are always running from one thing to
another without any system, they do very little comparative
good by it. The rule applies to serious as well as to lighter
reading. Now I must stop."
October 26th, 1845.
..."Now as it is Sunday I will preach to you a little.
i. Don't be slovenly either in your person or habits. Of
the first I do not accuse you, dear Fan, but of the second I
rather do. Never leave your pocket-handkerchief about ;
keep all your books and things in their right places. Don't
plead excuse by thinking of persons of slovenly habits
(like myself for example), but take warning by them, and
PRACTICAL ADVICE.
believe that these habits are bad in a man, and interfere with 1840.
his comforts and his usefulness; and still worse in a woman, ^ 55-
and utterly without excuse.
2. When you are working at anything (whether finger
work or head work, no matter), do it heartily. Avoid
dawdling it is a deadly evil. How many there are of
this abominable class of dawdlers ! Men complain of the
shortness of time ; and well, they may, while they turn their
short allowance to so little account. I believe that dawdlers,
who have been very prolific, have bred a race of grumblers ;
sprightliness, activity, and happiness, are sisters by blood, and
are best seen together ; and they will be your constant
visitors if you take the right way to please them.
3. Be punctual in all your engagements. Time is not
given you to play with. If you are one minute behind time,
do learn (no matter what the appointment may be) to think
it a misfortune. Yea, and it may be a sin too. When you
come to me next spring I shall expect you to be punctual to
a moment. The habit once gained is a perpetual comfort to
yourself and to those about you, and it helps you in the
performance of your daily task. And do believe that you
have a daily task. Life is worth nothing without it implies
duties, and very solemn duties, both to God and man. Don't
suppose I want you to be severe not a bit of it. I like
a merry face and a merry heart ; but then our joys should
be those of Christians. And we have no right to waste God's
gifts by dawdling and other bad habits."...
The next letter is in pleasant contrast to these serious
admonitions. It will be remembered that Sedgwick had been
present at the previous excavations at Bartlow in 1835 and
1838.
TRINITY COLLEGE HALL,
April zyd, 1840.
My dear Fan,
I wish you could only see me, looking sour as a
crab, and dignified as a round of beef, surrounded by sixty-nine
io OPENING OF THE BARTLOW BARROWS.
1840. unfortunate undergraduates, whom I am tormenting with long
t- 55- Latin passages that I have given them to translate. Some of
them are, like yourself, puckering their brows into furrows ;
others are writing with one hand, and scratching their heads
with the other; some are turning their eyes towards the
rafters to look after lofty thoughts ; others are striking their
brows with their knuckles, and, from their looks of disappoint-
ment, I half suspect that, spite of their knocking, they have
found no one at home to answer them. Well ! but I will not
make a mock of the miseries of those about me, as I have
endured them all in my younger days, and know their smart.
Still my office is that of Inquisitor, and to torment those
within my grasp seems to be a part of my melancholy duty.
This is a terrible long sheet, and how shall I contrive to fill it ?
Let me see, I have nothing to write about but myself; so I
must give you my history.
On Thursday last I returned from a two days' excursion
to Bedfordshire ; and next day drove over to Ely to see my old
college friend Dean Peacock. I intended to have returned on
Saturday evening; but he persuaded me to remain over Easter
Sunday. The service in the Cathedral was very fine and
solemn, and the singing excellent ; and when the prayers v/ere
over, we adjourned to the great area under the lantern, where
the congregations of all the churches of the city were united
and addressed by the Dean. It was a very striking sight to
see crowds of people, and long groups of children from the
different Sunday Schools, come streaming in at the different
doors, and gradually arranging themselves in the great area,
before the sermon began ; and the whole scene reminded me
more of the pageants and processions one sees in the Roman
Catholic cathedrals of the continent, than of the ordinary
worship of a quiet protestant congregation.
On Monday I halted only a few hours at Cambridge, and
then went on to Lord Braybrooke's, for the purpose, not
merely of partaking of his hospitalities and meeting a large
and pleasant party, but also in the hopes of assisting at the
OPENING OF THE BARTLOW BARROWS. 11
opening of a great barrow or tumulus, at Bartlow, a village 1840.
about seven or eight miles from Audley End. I have been *' 55 '
there on several similar occasions 1 , and I am sorry to say that
this is the last, for all the great barrows have now been opened
and despoiled of their contents. The custom of throwing great
heaps of stones over the dead, and piling great mounds of earth
over their remains, is, as you know, very ancient, and is several
times alluded to in the Bible. The old Britons constantly
raised such monuments, and you must have seen some of them
on the chalk hills of the Isle of Wight. The Romans, when they
had possession of this country, sometimes adopted the custom;
for all the barrows near Bartlow are proved to be Roman. I
wish I could draw, and then I would send you a beautiful
picture of them ; but I cannot draw half so well as a pig's foot,
which can make its own likeness in mud and clay ; and if it
had a brush and a pallet there is no knowing what pictures it
might not make. But if a pig's foot can draw, let me try my
hand. So here is a picture for you !
Now my dear little antiquary, the first question is, What
things do these big mounds of earth hold ? and the next
question is, How to get at them ? Now in the little tumuli or
barrows (which from their size one may call wheel-barrows, a,
b, c, d,} it was soon found that bones and works of Roman
art were placed exactly on the level of the ground, and in
the exact centre of the barrow all under little brick vaults.
Hence it was supposed probable that all the furniture of the
great hills might be packed in a similar way. Therefore
Lord Maynard (to whom the ground belongs) ordered cuts
1 See Vol. i., pp. 506 509. The descriptions of the successive explorations of
these tumuli are referred to on p. 509, note.
12 OPENING OF THE BARTLOW BARROWS.
1840. to be made on the level of the ground, and to be driven to
t- 55- the centre of the circle that forms the base of each mound
(see my beautiful drawing, hill No. 2) ; and in each case the
result was the same (with the exception of hill No. 4, which
some thief had entered before us, and taken care to carry
away all the furniture of the larder). In the middle of the
base was a box, as you may well suppose, rather the worse
for wear, and partly filled with dirt and soil that had passed
through the broken lid. But the earth had made a kind of
natural vault, like a baker's oven, so that there was far less
dirt than you would have expected, and the vessels inside
were beautifully perfect, at least, the greater part of them.
They consisted of fine, and very elegantly formed, bronze
vessels of sacrifice ; of many vessels of glass, some of which
contained liquor, but whether it had been wine, or a decoction
of an old Roman, I can hardly tell you, but I know that it
was very bad. In each barrow there was also a bronze
lamp ; and in the largest (No. 2) part of the oil was left
in a kind of stiff resinous form, and the wick was not half
consumed, so I believe the box was shut up while the lamp
was burning, and that it went out for want of air. Each box
contained also a large glass vessel with fragments of burnt
bone from the funeral pile (for you remember the Romans
burnt their dead, and made their monuments over the ashes
and half-burnt bones, but in the British barrows you find
entire skeletons). One contained a beautiful bronze camp
stool, the strigils with which the Romans scraped themselves
when they came out of the bath, and a singularly beautiful
bronze vessel covered with very fine patterns of enamel.
When you study Grecian and Roman history you will find it
mentioned that they sacrificed a cock to ^Esculapius at the
time of a funeral; and it is mentioned that the Romans before
they closed up a tomb, used to sprinkle the sacred vessels
and bones with holy consecrated water, using for the purpose a
branch of myrtle. Now only think ! we found the bones of
the cock which had been sacrificed to the god ^Esculapius, and
OPENING OF THE BARTLOW BARROWS. 13
a bunch of boxwood which had been used instead of myrtle, 1840.
which of course was not to be found in our climate. In short, && 55-
dearest Fan, I could almost have fancied that old Time had
put back the pointer of his clock full 1600 years, and that we
were living again with the old Romans. Dear me ! I thought
I should never fill the sheet, and now I have no room for the
direction. But I really have done my long story. So fancy
us all going to eat lunch with the clergyman ; and fancy a
party of twenty-two getting into four carriages ; and fancy a
great crowd of country people gradually dispersing; and fancy
one or two eager antiquaries remaining behind to scratch
away the earth and rubbish that had been left, in the hopes,
no doubt, of finding a bit of an old Roman, or something
that once belonged to him ; and fancy their disappointment
when they found only three or four bits of gingerbread, which
a mischievous uncle of yours put among the dirt to puzzle
them ; and fancy driving away to Audley End and eating a
good dinner with true classic appetites ; and fancy us assem-
bled at breakfast, when Professor Whewell produced a poem
describing a visit paid during the hours of night by the ghost
of the old Roman to the bedsides of all those who had been
disturbing his bones 1 ; and then fancy me in my gig ; and so
fancy me in Cambridge ; and then, my dear friend, you may
come down from the clouds, and settle your mind among the
sober realities of life. And among such sober realities believe
me, dearest Fan,
Your affectionate uncle,
A. SEDGWICK.
P.S. I forgot to say that there were many vessels of red
pottery in the boxes along with the bronzes and glasses, and
outside one box was a large coarse amphora with the sweep-
ings of the funeral pile, Thus
1 Whewell's poem is printed, as were those written on the former occasions,
in Sunday Thoughts and other Verses, p. 6r.
14 DEATH OF DR AINGER.
1840. In October, 1840, Sedgwick had the misfortune to lose
* 55- his oldest and dearest friend, Dr Ainger. His sister, father,
and mother had died when he was away from Dent, and it
is probable that he now found himself, for the first time, in
the presence of death.
ST BEES, October 23, 1840.
My dear Wodehouse,
You will perhaps be surprised to see that I am
still, at this late season, in the northern part of Cumberland,
away from my native valley, and away from my duties in
Cambridge. But I am not detained by any motives of idle
curiosity, but by the solemn duties of Christian love "I owe
to the family of the oldest friend I had in the world.
Isabella and I had a prosperous journey to Tuxford, over
the great flat of England. After halting a day at Tuxford we
posted to Wentworth House an enormous and gorgeous
pile, the front of which is a furlong in length. There we
made our Sunday halt ; and next day I attended the meeting
of the Geological and Agricultural Society of the West
Riding. Finally, we worked our way to the old parsonage
of Dent on the Tuesday after I left Norwich. I need not say
that we had a joyful welcome. The remaining part of the
week I spent in rambling among the scenes of my youthful
days ; and on the Sunday I preached in the morning at
Dent, and in the evening at the little chapel of which I laid
the foundation-stone about three years since. Mr Matthews
has done his duty there admirably. I found the little chapel
crowded, and a Sunday school of 80 smiling children, in
a place where, a very few years since, everything had run
wild for want of looking after, and there was hardly to be
seen a single Christian blossom. I think I told you that
I was engaged to attend a public meeting at Kendal on
the 1 2th. In order that we might not be parted, and partly
also through desire to hear what I had to say, all the house-
hold went with me. Our friend Dr Ainger of St Bees we
knew was out of health ; though from his cheerful letters, we
did not suppose that he was at all seriously ill ; and we had
DEATH OF DR AINGER.
arranged, the day after my lecture at Kendal, to pass through 1840.
the exquisite scenery of the Lakes to Keswick, and probably ^ L 55-
to drive on by moonlight to St Bees the same evening. But
a second letter I received at Kendal convinced me (though
still suspecting no danger) that such a visitation might be
too much for a man in feeble health. So my brother and
sister and Dick turned back, and I went on with Isabella.
On reaching the place on Wednesday evening (the Hth)
I was greatly shocked to find my dear and good friend very
very ill. He was labouring under a low fever which had
followed a course of active treatment for congestion of the
liver. From the first I thought the case a bad one. The
management of the house now in some measure fell on me,
for two children and the governess were the only persons at
home. I sat up in the sick room Thursday night and part
of Friday night, the symptoms gradually worse and worse,
the mind of the poor patient clouded, and disturbed by
delirious dreams. On Sunday morning I preached for him,
but not without great pain to myself, for I had given up all
hopes of his recovery ; on Sunday night and Monday night I
was not in bed. Early on Tuesday morning a great change
took place ; the delirious dreams fled away, and the cloud
parted from my dear dying friend's mind. He talked
coherently, though with great difficulty ; joined frequently in
devotions ; and when I had read by his bedside one or two
short prayers, and those passages from the New Testament
which are in the Sacrament Service, he told me / had not
gone far enough, and seemed to ask for the concluding prayers
of the Visitation of the Sick. He afterwards uttered many
pious ejaculations, made a most noble but most truly humble
Christian confession, and mustering the last remnants of his
parting strength raised himself and blessed his children and
friends who were bending over him. Oh ! what a scene a
death-bed is ! I do rejoice I have witnessed it, painful as it has
been to us all ; for I loved poor Ainger as my own brother.
When I was an undergraduate, he nursed me, at the risk
1 6 DEATH OF DR AINGER.
1840. of his life, when I had a raging fever. Fourteen years since
* 55- I came to his door (during one of my geological rambles),
and found him dangerously ill, and nursed him till he was
out of danger. And is it not strange that the same Provi-
dence should again have led me to his door in his hour
of need ? The family are much exhausted with mourning
and watching, but are, God be thanked ! all well. The
funeral is on Saturday. I have been very very busy, and
must remain over Monday; after which I must go back to
Cambridge, taking Dent for one day as a halting-place.
Pray excuse this mournful letter. But of the fulness of the
heart the mouth speaketh.
Very affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
Sedgwick's interest in his friend did not terminate with
his funeral. He took effectual steps to perpetuate his memory
by promoting a subscription among their common friends for
a bust and monument at St Bees, which was put up in the
course of 1842, with an inscription corrected, if not actually
written, by Bishop Blomfield. Moreover he continued to the
children the affection he had felt for their father. Dr Ainger
had made him guardian to his daughters, whom he watched
over with parental solicitude ; and he corresponded with his
son on terms of intimate friendship 1 .
When Sedgwick got back to Cambridge he found the
University " in all the bustle of a contested election for the
office of High Steward, which," he wrote, "in my present
temper, is quite odious to me." At any other time he would
have plunged into the fray with eagerness and activity, for it
had many features in common with the memorable struggle
of 1829, which resulted in the election of Mr Cavendish. The
candidates were Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Lyttelton, both of
1 In 1853, when requested to be godfather to one of his children, Sedgwick
wrote : " How can I refuse to stand for your son, and the grandson of the dearest
friend I ever had in the world ? "
CONTESTED ELECTION FOR HIGH STEWARD. 17
Trinity College. The former was a tried man, with all the 1840.
advantages of a brilliant reputation and a successful career : &* 55-
the latter had taken his degree only two years previously, and
could offer nothing to the electors except distinguished
classical honours, and the promise of success in after-life which
they might hold out. Trinity College seems to have favoured
the younger of her sons, to judge from the presence of the
Master, the Vice Master, the Tutors, and nearly all the
resident Fellows, on Lord Lyttelton's committee. Sedgwick
supported him, but, for the reason above indicated, without
much enthusiasm. Lyndhurst was out of England, and, on
learning from the newspapers that he had been started by
his friends, wrote in evident perturbation : " I will not run
any risk. It would be very mortifying to me to be defeated.
It would also be, in some degree, a blow to the Conservative
cause at least it would be so interpreted by the Radicals 1 ."
The contest was watched with eager interest, even by those
who did not belong to the University. "The Cambridge
Election," wrote Mr W. D. Conybeare, " has excited a more
general sensation than I remember to have been caused
by any like University question." Those who had made
themselves responsible for Lyndhurst shewed their sense of
the risk they had incurred by working with so much energy
that at the close of the poll he had beaten his opponent by a
majority of nearly two to one 2 .
With this exception the term, so far as Sedgwick was
concerned, was busy but uneventful. He was lecturing six
days in each week, and could therefore find little time for
other occupations. He managed, however, to attend the first
meeting of the Geological Society, for the sake of meeting
Agassiz, who read a paper On Glaciers, and the evidence of
their having once existed in Scotland, Ireland, and England.
1 A Life of Lord Lyndhurst, by Sir T. Martin, K.C.B. 8vo. Lond. 1883,
p. 390.
2 The exact numbers were : Lyndhurst, 973 ; Lyttelton, 488. In Trinity
College 242 voted for Lyttelton ; 227 for Lyndhurst.
S. II. 2
i8 AGASSIZ AND HIS GLACIAL THEORY.
1840. It excited a long discussion, in which Sedgwick took part,
i - 55- and the battle was " kept up till near midnight." These
discussions are not reported ; but Sedgwick's line of argument
may be inferred from a criticism on the Etiides stir les glaciers,
then recently published. " I have read his Ice-book. It is
excellent, but in the last chapter he loses his balance, and
runs away with the bit in his mouth 1 ." After this Sedgwick
did not again leave Cambridge, except to attend a Chapter
at Norwich (where he presided at the annual dinner of the
Philosophical Society) ; and on Christmas Day he preached
in the College Chapel. The sermon was evidently a remarkable
one, for he was requested by several members of the College
to print it ; but it does not appear that their prayer was
granted.
This was a memorable year in the history of the Wood-
wardian Museum. The new wing of the Library, in which it
is still located, had been nearly completed by the end of 1839;
and in February, 1840, Sedgwick met the architect, Mr
Cockerell, to settle on the fittings. Soon afterwards an
important collection of fossils arrived from Germany. As
the purchase of this was due to Sedgwick's energy and
discrimination, it requires a brief notice, which can fortunately
be given for the most part in his own words.
In the summer of 1839 he had visited Bayreuth with
Murchison, for the express purpose of seeing the extensive
collection belonging to Count George Miinster, a well-known
scientific geologist. Nine years before Murchison had sent
to Sedgwick an enthusiastic description of the Count and his
cabinet: "Count George Munster" he wrote, " is the prince
of fine, honest-hearted, intelligent, travelled Germans. His
cabinet, without any exception, the most instructive in Europe
for the oolitic series, and down to the coal-measures." Some
time before their visit, the Count had been anxious to sell his
collection to the King of Bavaria, but, after long delay, the
1 To R. I. Murchison, 26 November, 1840. Proceedings of the Geological
Society, iii. 327.
COUNT MUNSTERS COLLECTION. 19
negotiation had fallen through, because, as Sedgwick said, l8 4-
"though His Majesty has some taste for antiques, he has no ^ t - *
true relish for such as are pre-adamite." This refusal, and
the delay which had accompanied it, were turned to the
advantage of the university in the following manner :
" While this negotiation was going on, the Count began to arrange
a second collection out of his multitude of duplicates ; and in the
end it became almost the counterpart of the first. After he had
resolved to keep his first collection, the second, as far as he was
concerned, lost all its value. This I told him the moment I saw it,
and ran my eye over his catalogues ; and I hinted that he ought to
sell it to some public collection. To this he replied rather gruffly (or
perhaps only Grafly) that he was not a dealer, fai traque beaucoup^
mais je rial jamais marchande, were, I think, his exact words. I
soon, however, put my meaning right, by pointing out to him how
much it would be for the good of science, and for his own honour,
that the counterpart of his noble collection should be placed in some
public museum, rather than be locked up in his packing-cases, to be
eventually, perhaps, broken up and scattered to the four winds. I
did not, however, then ask him to fix a price for it, as he had already
undertaken to negotiate for me the purchase of a fine Pappenheim
collection Before we finally parted, he gave me reason to hope that
if this purchase could not be effected, he would fix a price on his
own collection of duplicates, and give me the first chance 1 ."
The purchase of the Pappenheim collection failed, and
Count Miinster then fixed 500 as the price of his own.
Sedgwick advised the University not to let such an oppor-
tunity slip, offering, if the Woodwardian Fund could not bear
the whole cost, to give 100 himself. In the course of the
negotiations he wrote to the Vice-Chancellor :
" It appears from the Count's statement that the collection con-
tains more than 20,000 specimens of organic remains, of which
13,000 are perfectly arranged and completely catalogued; that the
remaining 7000 or 8000 are in a great measure arranged and cata-
logued, a few only being still under the examination of Professor
Goldfuss and awaiting his final determination respecting them.
" Before making the offer [to the King of Bavaria] he separated a
noble series of duplicates for his private cabinets, which he was very
well enabled to do, as he had, during the last twenty or thirty
years, purchased not less than twenty great collections ; besides
making, during his own tours in various parts of Europe, enormous
1 To Rev. J. Romilly, 30 November, 1839.
2 2
20 CORRESPONDENCE WITH CANON WODEHOUSE.
_ ^-
1840. additions from different fossil localities in Germany, France, Italy, etc.
E t 55> The consequence was, that, by the help of casts where there were no
duplicates, his second collection, for all useful purposes, became
nearly as good as the first, which is unquestionably the finest in all
Europe.... The price (,500) is not one half what I expected the
Count would demand for it. It is very valuable, and the additional^
value from the labour and talent employed in arranging, classifying,
and naming the several specimens (every one of which has a ticket
in the Count's hand-writing) is above all estimate 1 ."
The Woodwardian Trustees wisely listened to the Pro-
fessor's recommendation, and the Senate allowed the purchase
without opposition 2 .
A very different matter, belonging also to this year,
requires brief notice. Early in March Canon Wodehouse,
who had long felt the difficulties attending subscription
to the Articles of Religion, circulated a draft Bill, the object
of which was to substitute for it a form of assent to the
doctrines contained in the three Creeds. This draft was
accompanied by a printed statement, intimating his intention
of resigning his position as a clergyman of the Church of
England, should he fail to obtain redress ; and further,
setting forth certain passages in the Liturgy, which, in his
opinion, required alteration, from an evangelical point of view.
It is difficult to understand what precise step he wished
Sedgwick to take. This much is, however, clear, that he
wanted his support, and that of some of his Cambridge
friends, in a movement to effect the desired reform. His
appeal found Sedgwick "nervous and out of heart in
consequence of a long weary fit of suppressed gout," and
the correspondence which ensued bears traces of this physical
condition. The letters are too long, and too little suitable
for a biography, to be printed entire ; but one or two passages
may be cited from those of Sedgwick, as shewing his attach-
ment to the Church, and, at the same time, his willingness
to accept certain changes in her formularies :
1 To Dr Tatham, Master of St John's College and Vice-Chancellor, 19
November, 1839.
2 The Grace authorising the purchase is dated 27 November, 1839.
CORRESPONDENCE WITH CANON WODEHOUSE. 21
17' March, 1840. l84 '
yEt. 55.
"...I don't like a lax and vague signature. The
only way in which I think I could be induced to join heartily
in a movement, would be an attempt to get rid altogether
from the Prayer Book of a few objectionable passages. And
I should most joyfully accept the alterations suggested
in the early part of William the Third's reign. I fervently
hope I am mistaken, but my belief is that you will get no
redress at this time. There are detestable cowards who
dare not stir even to do right ; there are time-servers
who love the world's smiles a thousand times better than
the hopes of a quiet conscience ; there are honest cowards who
fear to lose the good they have in trying for more ; there
are a thousand pompous, bustling, Christians who worship
external forms with the spirit of rank idolatry ; there are
honest bigots who will not think anything established
can be wrong, and get rid of the trouble of uneasy thoughts
by resting on authority ; there are the thousands who hate
the church ; the thousands who care not for religion ; and
how can you make an impression on such a body ? The
Lords are jealous of the Commons, and the Commons of
the Lords; and as for the Bishops, their policy will be to
prevent slipping and sliding by sticking fast to their seats.
But I must conclude. Pray write again by next post..."
21 March, 1840.
"...Pray understand me ! I am writing on the one
point, your leaving the Church. By all means seek redress
on those points in which the forms of the Church may
be amended ; but for God's sake don't talk of running from
the old home..."
10 April, 1840.
''...The correspondence I have had with you has
disturbed me more than I know how to tell you. Alas !
I can only repeat what I have written before. I wrote
on the subject to Dr Arnold, and thought he perhaps
22 CORRESPONDENCE WITH CANON WODEHOUSE.
1840. might have been corresponding with you, but he tells me is
/t. 55. not. I think he will join you in your application. A very
able and honest friend of mine, a few years older than myself,
who was once Fellow of this College, and is now a kind
and useful evangelical clergyman, talked over the points
with me on Tuesday last. He wished the portions of the
Liturgy changed ; but he added that he could not leave
a Church with which he agreed more nearly, to the very
letter, than with any other Church passing under the
name of Christian ; that the Articles were avowedly drawn
up with a view to comprehension, and not under the views of
exclusion ; that to be useful a man must belong to a congre-
gation ; that regarding the matter practically, he was able
and willing to continue his duties ; and, least of all, was
he willing to flinch because he could not adopt the views
of any extreme party either high or low, &c. &c. I thought
his views rational and practical, and such as were compatible
with the best rules of Christian morality.... Had St Paul
been in your place I do not believe he would have come to
a conclusion essentially different from that of the friend
to whom I have alluded..."
Towards the end of the year the venerable Professor
Smyth had asked Sedgwick to look over the proof-sheets of
his Lectures on Modern History, which he was passing through
the press. Smyth's letter of thanks shews that Sedgwick
had worked very thoroughly in what must have been to
him an almost untrodden field.
18 ALBION STREET, LEEDS.
December itfh, 1840.
I am extremely gratified by your Letter, not only to see you able
to give my Lectures so much valuable Praise, but to see you so
interested in them, and so friendly to me, as to sit writing Sheet
after Sheet, in the Way you have done, to improve and correct them,
and render them fitter to obtain the Approbation of others. If any-
thing further occurs to you, pray at your Leisure lay it before me. . . .
Sedgwick was in residence at Norwich from January
to April, 1841. His niece Isabella, as in the previous year,
CONTROVERSY WITH "MILES? 23
brightened his old house with her presence. He was working 1841.
or rather trying to work , impeded by the usual difficul- &* 5
ties occasioned by ill-health and frequent interruptions at
the final revision of his joint paper with Murchison ; and
no incident worthy of special notice occurred except a brief
but lively controversy in the Norfolk Chronicle with an
anonymous writer signing himself Miles, who had presumed
to attack the conduct of the Dean and Chapter in the matter
of their patronage and their chanties.
To Rev. C. Ingle.
CAMBRIDGE, January 30^, 1841.
My dear Ingle,
I have so completely forgotten how long it is
since I wrote last that I am at loss for a starting-point. In
the October term I was holding forth in a new lecture-room
six days a week. The roof is vaulted in such a way that it
reverberates every sound ten times over. It seemed day by
day as if a legion of wicked spirits were hovering over me
and mocking me in the midst of my labours. But worse
than this, not half my class could hear half I wished to tell
them, such was the Babel din. Nor were these all my
miseries ; such a foul smell of paint it turns my stomach
inside out even to think of it...
I remained over Christmas Day and preached in our
Chapel, and then went to spend a few days with the Dean
of Ely. The Marchesa, Lady Munro, Whewell, Jones, etc.
etc., of the party. They contrived to get up a grand fire
while we were there. Twelve large wheat-ricks all blazing
together on the outskirts of the city quite in your own way 1 .
The Cathedral looked nobly, and ghostly, lighted up by this
fire, and projected on a pitch-dark sky. From Ely I went to
Whittlesea, and saw thousands, and I think tens of thousands,
whirling on the ice. There were certainly 10,000 persons
1 Ingle had sent Sedgwick a description of the fire at York Minster, 20 May
1840.
24 ADMIRATION FOR THE FENS.
1841. assembled one day on Whittlesea Mere to see a match
* 56- another day nearly as many. I went to the frozen Fens to see
the daughters of poor Ainger, to whom I am now guardian.
Did you ever see the Fens ? Wordsworth told me he con-
sidered a dead interminable plain a sublime object. The eye
of the body finds nothing to stop it, and has nothing to rest
on, and therefore it is that the mind's eye is set upon
conjuring tricks, and easily finds a beast for the poetic soul
to stride over. I don't think I express the thought in his
exact words, but I trust you understand all about it without
any more words. One day the vision of Peterborough
Cathedral seen across the hazy fen was very sublime. It
seemed of supernatural magnitude, and its clustering forms
were very majestic. From Whittlesea I went to Lord Fitz-
william's and met a large Christmas party. You will be glad
to hear that a great work, giving the letters of Burke and his
correspondents from his early life almost to the day of his
death is just coming out 1 . I read several of them in Lord
F.'s study. And I had the pleasure (while sitting under noble
portraits of Burke and his son by Sir Joshua ) of talking with
two sensible old ladies who in their younger days had known
Burke most intimately. I can tell you some long stories
about him when you next come to Norwich. He was fond
of preserved ginger and drank great tumblers of cold water.
Surely such facts are precious. So believe me,
Your affectionate friend
A. SEDGWICK.
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
CLOSE, NORWICH, March 28^, 1841.
..."I am giving, each Wednesday, a lecture of
about two hours to the Museum Society. My first was about
rain, springs, rivers, bogs, and marshes. My second was about
1 Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke ; between the year
1744, and the period of his decease, in 1797. Edited by Earl Fitzwilliam and
Sir R. Bourke. 4 vols., 8vo. Lond. 1844.
NORWICH LECTURES. 25
snow, ice, glaciers, boulder-stones, and gravel. My next is to 1841
be devoted to the classification of such beasts, birds, fishes, and ^ 5
reptiles as are now living on the face of the earth. And the
two following will contain the life-history and adventures of
the beasts, birds, fishes, and reptiles which lived before the
time of Adam, with many interesting anecdotes of their love
adventures. You see therefore what a glorious subject I have
before me ; and I only wish that you could come with your
Mamma and Annie and sit under me, and encourage me with
your kind looks, and then come home and help me to drink
tea after I have become thirsty with so much talking. By
the way I always have a tea-party after my lectures, and
Mrs Blakiston, Lucy Wodehouse, Miss Pellew, and I don't
know who besides are coming on Wednesday evening...."
Presently, after speaking of Miss Kate Stanley as " enjoy-
ing society, yet capable of being happy and well-employed
out of society," he proceeds :
"This is a great point to learn, dearest Fankin. All
persons should learn to live alone, I mean sometimes. But
there are many persons who are never happy when by them-
selves, which shews that they want resources in their own
minds, and have had a bad moral training. Now, my dear
niece, when you are by yourself you are in God's presence ;
while you walk out you are in a glorious temple built by
His hands ; and while you have your eyes and understand-
ing you can live and converse with the holy men, and the
Apostles, and the poets, and the historians of all time. And
when your ears are tired of the grave sounds of their voices
you can join in the cheerful duties of the day, and the cheerful
sounds of fire-side talk. And are not these things delightful ?
Yes to a right temper they are. And now acquire this
temper, and acquire these habits, while you are young and
your mind is plastic. But discipline must be gone through,
and do, my dear niece, try to turn the present time to profit.
It is your seed-time. Sow then the good seed among the
26 NEW WOODWARDIAN MUSEUM.
1841. vernal blossoms, and may God grant that when a woman
* 56. y OU mav rea p a ^h harvest of happiness and usefulness."
As soon 'as Sedgwick could get away from Norwich he
hastened back to Cambridge, to superintend the removal of
his Museum to its new quarters, and the unpacking of some
forty cases, among which there was danger of his being
" smothered as old Samson was by the house he pulled
about his ears." In these labours he was helped by Mr
Ansted 1 , Fellow of Jesus College, who had already done
some good work in the Woodwardian Museum, and now for
a time became his regular assistant. But, when summer set
in, and Cambridge became empty and dull, he found the
confinement irksome ; his health gave way, and much as he
regretted to leave his work unfinished, he felt that it would
be wise to break off, and get exercise and fresh air. It was
his intention to visit the southern districts of Ireland and
Scotland, a long and laborious journey: "but," he said, "if
all be well, this summer will finish my geological labours in
the field; and then for the closet, should God continue my
health 2 ." Before he could start, a general election called
him to Yorkshire. He went reluctantly. He announced his
intention to vote for the whigs, but, he added, " not in such
good spirits as I used to do, because I am sadly displeased
at some of their doings. I do not mean to make any
speeches, as I could not with a good conscience say that I
approved of all the ground taken by my old whig friends 3 ."
This duty despatched, Sedgwick journeyed to Plymouth,
taking Dartmoor by the way, where he did a week's geology.
The meeting of the British Association, presided over by
Whewell, was hardly so successful as those of former years;
1 David Thomas Ansted, B.A. 1836, afterwards Professor of Geology at
King's College, London, and F.R.S. The report of the Inspectors for 1839
speaks of " the splendid collection of corals, now in course of arrangement by
Mr Ansted."
2 To Miss F. Hicks, i May, 1841.
3 To Rev. John Sedgwick, 27 June and 3 July, 1841. The reason for
Sedgwick's displeasure is stated below (p. 143) in a letter to Bishop Wilberforce.
LAKES OF KILLARNEY. 27
the weather was bad, and the attendance scanty. Still 1841.
Sedgwick, as his manner was, contrived to extract a good deal &* 5 6 -
of pleasure out of the scenery (when the rain allowed him to see
it), and out of the divers hospitalities in which he was invited
to take a part At Plymouth he was joined by Mr Richard
Griffith, who had undertaken to be his guide in Ireland.
Their route from Dublin lay through Wicklow, Wexford,
and Waterford to Cork, whence they struck across the country
to Killarney. Sedgwick appears to have been as much
interested with the people and the scenery as with geology ;
but, wherever they went, the bad weather pursued them.
" My macintosh," he writes from Tramore, " was of no more
use than so much blotting-paper. I have been making myself
agreeable to the cook, and smoking by the kitchen fire like a
wash-tub on a frosty morning 1 ." At Killarney the weather
cleared for a few hours, and he grew enthusiastic over the
lakes, which even he admitted to be superior in beauty to
those of Cumberland. Their luxuriant vegetation especially
delighted him. " The arbutus grows to the size of a forest
tree ; the holly strives to outdo the arbutus ; each tree and
plant seems to struggle with its neighbour for the mastery.
The oak beats them all, and behind his top-branches you see
a great precipice of white limestone, like that at the base of
Ingleborough, but half-covered by vast tufts of ivy, and giving
support to an upper fringe of birch and other mountain-plants
and trees." Thence he crossed the mountains to the head of
Dingle Bay, to examine "the most northern of the great
promontories that stand out of the south-west coast of the
counties of Cork and Kerry like so many great prongs. All
these promontories are composed of ridges of finely peaked
mountains ; and the bays that run up for thirty or forty
miles between these ridges are most magnificent, when the
weather permits you to see them. I have seen them, but only
by glimpses. The mountains near the end of Dingle rise
directly out of the sea, and are as high as Scawfell. You
1 To Mrs John Sedgwick, 13 August, 1841.
28 SOUTH-WEST COAST OF IRELAND.
1841. never saw anything so wild as the country and the people, or
* 5 6 - so miserable as the cabins many of them contrive to live in.
Before reaching Castlemaine, on our way to Dingle, we overtook
a strange and wild but most mournful procession. A labourer
had died suddenly a few miles from his home, and they were
bearing his body on boards (with a cloth thrown over the
face and upper parts, but with the legs and feet bare) towards
his own cabin. Several men, and about two hundred women,
were following. The moment we saw them Mr Griffith said :
' Now you will hear what you never heard before. These
women are following to howl ; it is still the custom in these
wild parts, and the moment our car comes near, they will
begin.' The words were hardly out of his mouth when a
low murmuring sound, like distant psalm-singing, was heard.
It soon became louder and louder, and, as we came close up,
gradually rose to a very loud, wild, protracted, howl. The
sounds were ha-ha, hi-hee, ho-ho, oh, augh ! and being
repeated again and again, in a kind of regular cadence (the
hi-hee rising almost to a shriek, and the remaining syllables
sinking almost to a low groan) fell very dismally upon the ear,
and, spite of the barbarous absurdity, was really affecting....
" The day following we had dreadful weather, and, after
going round the extreme western headlands of the Dingle
promontory, where we collected some very curious fossils, we
returned to the inn with our flesh soddened in rain, and our
bones almost gelatinised. But I took no serious cold. Spite
of the wet, I wish you had been with me to see the great
Atlantic swell pounding against the noble cliffs. The south-
western gale caught up the foam as soon as it was formed,
and bore it aloft above the cliff, and swept it across the
country to a considerable distance. Many acres of land, near
the cliffs, were so covered with sea-foam as to be almost as
white as snow."
Having explored this wild headland, Sedgwick went back
by way of Tralee to Killarney, and thence along the coast
to Limerick. A change in the weather enabled him to see
IRISH ANECDOTES.
29
:
the Shannon to some advantage. He ascended it in a 1841.
steamer as far as Banagher, whence, after spending an even- ^ 56-
ing with Lord Ross in his observatory, he found himself in
Dublin again on the first day of September.
This rapid excursion is described by Sedgwick in letters
written almost as hurriedly as he travelled ; and his remarks
on the people he met, and the good stories he heard, were too
often reserved for oral communication. He could not, how-
ever, resist writing down the following dialogue. The scene
is the coast of Kerry, near the mouth of the Shannon, where
the sea has hollowed the cliff into caves frequented by seals.
Enter Sedgwick and his guide, a merry lad of fourteen, with
a dog at his heels. 'What's your dog's name ?' ' His name,
your honour, is it that you want ? He is called Sir Robert
Peel.' 'Why so, Pat?' 'Because, your honour, he is the
finest rat-catcher in all the country.'
After a rest of two days in Dublin Sedgwick set off for
otland. To reach it he passed rapidly along the east coast
of Ireland, and spent a day in ascending the highest of the
Mourne Mountains, where he was much interested in the
proceedings of a party of engineers, who were endeavouring
to communicate with stations on Scaw Fell and Black
Comb by means of reflectors. Thence he crossed the Irish
Channel from Donaghadee to Port Patrick. Some three
weeks were spent in geological investigations, agreeably
diversified with visits to friends. Such a journey need not
be described at length. As Sedgwick said, when he sat
down at Dent to amuse Miss Stanley with an account of
what he had done and seen in Scotland : " a geological tour,
along a beaten road, without a single incident, and addressed
to a lady who does not care a straw for all the stones on the
face of the earth the case seems almost beyond hope !" He
did, however, write a long and interesting letter, from which
we will make a few extracts. After describing Port Patrick,
and the " old weather-beaten square tower " near the entrance
of the harbour, he proceeds :
30 COAST OF WIGTONSHIRE.
1841. " During the two most miserable days of this miserably
Et. 56. W et summer I halted with Mr J. C. Moore (a brother of the
late Sir John Moore), who has built himself an excellent house
on the shores of Loch Ryan. I reached his door the evening
of the day I landed at Port Patrick, and found three or four
ladies, shining and all glorious to behold, dressed out for
the county ball ; but the old gentleman remained at home
with me, and I soon struck up an acquaintance with a little
girl, about five or six years old, who offered to give me a part
of her breakfast of oatmeal porridge, at half-past seven next
morning. This offer I of course accepted ; and the libation
of milk and oatmeal seemed a fit offering for the altar of love,
for I have had a most affectionate note from the little maid
since I left the house. Two days of idleness, spent in agree-
able and intellectual society, did me a great deal of good ; for
I was beginning to be fatigued by the continual toil of my
tour, often carried on in spite of wind and foul weather. I
turned out, however, like a good working-bee, as soon as the
sun began to shine again ; and wound my way northwards
along the wild picturesque coast of Wigtonshire. The cliffs
were interesting to one of my craft ; but I could not help now
and then turning my face from them, and looking over the
broad sea, and gazing on the projecting headlands of the
Mull of Cantire, the pinnacles of the Isle of Arran, and the
magnificent pyramidal rock of Ailsa. These are noble
objects; and they had double charms for me, from being
associated with the remembrance of the geological toils of a
former year.
******
" I wish t my sister had not come in and interrupted me ;
for at the rate I was travelling I should have paced through
all the south part of Scotland long before this time. Do
therefore turn back with me to the coast of Wigtonshire ;
just glance your eye over the southern Hebrides, and then
we will go on. No ! we must go faster still. I will transport
you to the hills a few miles south of Ayr. The whole rocky
ROBERT BURNS.
coast, as far as eye can reach, is glowing in the warm light 1841.
of the western sun the peaks of Arran are rising sharply ^ L
on the sky the great pyramid of Ailsa is becoming
dim with distance and in the far north, the summits of
some of the distant Grampians seem to be melting on the
horizon. And what have we at our feet ? ' The banks
and braes of bonnie Boon' on the other side of it a
pretty Corinthian round temple perched on a rock a
national monument to poor Burns, but not perhaps in
good taste and, if you keep a good look-out, you will
get a peep at the auld brig over which Tarn O'Shanter
escaped from the young witch's gripe, of Alloway auld kirk,
famous for witches' revels, and of the cottage by the
road-side which was the poet's birth-place. The scene,
independently of all associations, is very beautiful ; but every
nook of it reminds you of the unhappy bard. All these
spots I visited with great delight. The cottage is now a
public-house, kept by an old sinner who was often a boon
companion of Burns, He boasted of the glasses he had
drunk with the poet. ' Perhaps too many,' I replied. ' Nae,
Sir, Burns was never the worse for drink.' In a small inner
room I found about half a dozen topers making an unhallowed
offering under the picture of the poet ; for they were ' mortal
fou,' at least they seemed so to me, though I dare say they
would have thought, like mine host, that they were 'nae
worse for drink/ and have told me
'We are nae fou, we're nae that fou,
But just a drappie in our e'e &c.'
" I was delighted with Burns' poetry when I was a boy,
and I like it still. His love-songs are, I think, the best that
ever were written ; for they seem to spring directly from the
heart. He was a highly gifted being, and had a tender
conscience ; but he had strong, untamed, passions, and no
steady principles, and therefore often did what was wrong
and often was unhappy.
32 COAST OF RENFREW AND AYR.
1841. 'Oppressed with grief, oppressed with care,
5 5. A burden more than I can bear,
I sit me down and sigh :
Oh life ! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough and weary road,
To wretches such as I ! '
" What a picture of human misery ! and I believe there is
that about it which tells us of the real experience of the writer,
and not of fancy's dreams. But I must go on, and turn my
back upon the auld kirk."
From Ayr Sedgwick struck inland, and reached the valley
of the Clyde by way of Kilmarnock. There he did some
geological work, and after seeing the falls, descended to
Glasgow. Here we will resume his own narrative.
"Leaving Glasgow, I went by steam as far as Greenock;
and then in an open carriage along the beautiful coast of
Renfrewshire, and a part of Ayrshire. The weather was then
most charming, and the lights all that the imagination could
wish, and the succession of objects most soul-inspiring. The
driver looked round in pity, and thought I was going mad;
for I eould not conceal my raptures, and was continually
talking to myself. The shore too is not only well broken and
finely indented ; but, strange to tell, is well wooded. For the
great headland of Cantire, Arran, and the southern Hebrides
act as a shelter to the coast, so that trees flourish almost to
the water's edge. The same evening I joined Mr Moore junr. 1
at Maybole, and the rest of my tour was made in his company.
I found him a very agreeable companion, and we did some
good under-ground work together. One evening we missed our
way, while on foot among the mountains, and were benighted ;
but before midnight we made our way to a little village where
we were most kindly taken in, and most kindly treated. The
little village where we found beds is called Dalmellington,
and they have an odd custom. At five in the morning,
when the weather is good, they go round the village with
drum and fife, to tell the people to rouse themselves. Should
1 John Carrick Moore, F.R.S., author of some valuable geological papers.
NORTH COAST OF SOLWAY FIRTH. 33
the weather be bad, they go round, at the same hour, with 1841.
horns which they blow dolorously. But I slept so well, after &* 5 6 -
my long- walk, that the drum and fife had no effect on me,
though they roused my fellow-traveller. After threading our
way in the wild valleys above the village, and examining
some fine coal-fields (where that mineral is close to the
surface, and is sold for two and eightpence a ton, but is raised
in no great quantity because of the difficulties of carriage)
we turned westward, and crossed the fine wild chain of
Galloway for thirty miles, with hardly any company but
grouse and black cock ; and so descended to Wigton Bay on
the north side of the Solway Firth. Many a time and oft
have I gazed on this noble coast from the Cumberland side,
and longed to thread my way among its islets and promon-
tories. Now, I have been amply gratified. And, being
sheltered from the north by high hills, and looking out to the
south, it presents a succession of beautifully snug bays and
creeks, the sides of which are well cultivated, and decorated
with pleasure-grounds. The country has also another source of
interest, being the scene of one or two of Scott's novels. I was
greatly charmed with it, and think it incomparably superior
to the Cumberland coast, which possesses indeed very little
interest. We ascended to the neighbourhood of Lochmaben,
not to look at Bothwell's castle, but to look at the footsteps of
ancient monsters, which are seen on the stone of that country.
The great naturalist Sir W. Jardine had made a collection
of these impressions, so we went to his house at a venture,
and were most hospitably entertained by him. He lives in a
good ugly modern house, near the fine old square tower of his
ancestors. One of them took an English borderer prisoner,
who by some mistake was starved to death in the dungeon.
The enraged ghost long haunted the castle out of revenge ;
but was at length laid by an old Meenister in the days of
James the First; but not till after public prayers in the parish
church, and a procession in which a large black-letter Bible
was carried to the haunted room and deposited in all due
S. II. 3
34 INTENDED WORK ON PALEOZOIC ROCKS.
1841. form on a large oak table, there to remain till the end of
* 5 6 - time. There the large folio remained till about the end of
the last century, when the father of the present Baronet
removed it, put it in repair from the effects of 200 years damp,
and deposited it in a large oak chest as a family curiosity.
This sacrilegious act inspired all the good people round about
with terror ; but they gradually recovered, and the ghost has
now the castle to himself, and behaves himself very gently.
Last Thursday we ended our tour at Carlisle ; I came on to
Dent, and Mr Moore returned to his family in WigtonshireV
Sedgwick's object in taking this rapid tour can only be
understood by recollecting that his whole geological life was
dominated by his intention to write a general work upon the
Palaeozoic rocks of England and Wales. This intention was
so often interrupted for long periods, and he says so little
about it in his letters, that there is sometimes danger of
forgetting that the different pieces of research into which he
threw himself so energetically were in fact only parts of this
general design. Unfortunately it was conceived on too large
a scale, and conducted with too much minuteness of detail,
to be completed in a life-time so much taken up by other
occupations, and so harassed by continuous and increasing
ill-health. Material was accumulated year by year, but the
leisure for making use of it never came, and at last, as he
sadly admitted at the close of his life, " the infirmities of old
age had gathered round me before I had put my work in
order." In 1841, however, he was still full of hope, and, as
soon as the last paper on the Devonian system was out of
hand, he set about the task of revising his old work in
Wales and Cumberland, with the idea of bringing the several
Palaeozoic groups into good coordination, and of constructing
a classification which would apply to every portion of the
older rocks of Great Britain 2 . The districts examined in
Ireland and Scotland supplied facts bearing upon this
1 To Miss Stanley, from Dent, 6 October, 1841.
2 Preface to Salter's Catalogue, pp. xxiii xxv.
W HE WELL MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE. 35
. _ . .
rvision, and they were presently embodied in a Supplement l8 4 r -
a Synopsis of the English Series of Stratified Rocks iEt * s6 '
inferior to the Old Red Sandstone, read to the Geological
Society in November, 1841. The paper brought forward
additional confirmation of his views as to the classification
of the rocks of Devon, as well as a modification of the views
advanced in a paper with a similar title laid before the
Society in 1838.
When Sedgwick reached Trinity College at the beginning
of the last week of October, he found that a great change had
taken place in his absence. Dr Wordsworth, who had been
Master since the death of Dr Mansel in 1820, had resigned,
" to the astonishment of everybody 1 ," and Sir Robert Peel had
nominated Whewell in his room. It is now known that
Wordsworth, who had for some time contemplated this step,
waited for the fall of Lord Melbourne's government, with
the object of securing, not merely a conservative, but the
particular conservative who succeeded him. Under other
circumstances his successor would probably have been either
Peacock (then Dean of Ely), or Sedgwick ; and it is certain
that the Mastership of Trinity College was the one office that
the latter would have joyfully accepted 2 . Whewell was no
doubt well aware of this, and in consequence wrote to tell
Sedgwick of his appointment in a somewhat apologetic tone :
1 6 SUFFOLK STREET, PALL MALL:
October iqth, 1841.
My dear Sedgwick,
I do not know whether you have heard of the events which
have been taking place of late with reference to Trinity College
events so important that it will take a little time to look at them
calmly. The Master has resigned ; and, upon coming to town, I
find that Sir Robert Peel offers me the Mastership. This offer I
have accepted.
At present I look with alarm at the thought of being placed in a
position of rule over persons my seniors in standing, and my
superiors, as I sincerely believe, in the qualities requisite for the
1 To Isabella Sedgwick, 23 October, 1841.
2 This statement is made on the authority of Miss Sedgwick.
32
36 LETTERS BETWEEN WHEWELL AND SEDGWICK.
1841. government of the College; and I especially feel myself out of my
t. 56. place in being made superior in status to yourself. But the turn of
public affairs has brought about this result, and I had no alternative
except to accept the office which is thus placed in my way, or to
retire from all public life whatever. My main anxiety now is that
the Fellows of Trinity, with whom up to the present time I have
lived in good- will, and in cordial sympathy for the interests and
honour of the College, should aid me in promoting these in my new
capacity. I trust, my dear Sedgwick, that you and I, who both feel
deeply on these subjects, shall find little difficulty in bringing our
views into agreement as to the mode in which our objects are to be
secured. And I entertain little doubt that we shall be able to do
this, believing as I do that our views, at bottom, are very little
different. I will not easily be persuaded that we shall not agree on
all main points of College administration ; and, if I have with me
your judgment, I shall feel great confidence that I am following the
right course, and great hope of success. . . .
Always, my dear Sedgwick,
Affectionately yours,
W. WHEWELL.
Sedgwick may have hoped to be Master of Trinity ; but
no feelings of jealousy or regret betray themselves in his
cordial reply to Whewell : " It is well for a man to think
humbly of himself, " he says, " but I assure you, that of all
men living, you are by common consent thought most worthy
of the high honour of ruling our great intellectual body ; and
I feel confident that with God's blessing it will be a source of
happiness to you, and of great good to our Society.
" As for myself, it will delight me to give you all the help I
can. Our objects will, I trust, always be the same. We may
differ sometimes as to means, but our difference will be frank
and open, and such as is compatible with the warmest friend-
ship. When I took the Geological Chair I gave up the studies
which are connected with the ordinary training of our young
men. On this account I should be ill-fitted for those duties
for which you are at every point so admirably prepared.
You are now in your right place ; had I gained your present
position I should have been out of my right place 1 ."
1 Life of William Whewell, by Mrs Stair Douglas, p. 230. The original of
this letter cannot now be found.
PLESIOSAURUS FROM WHITBY. 37
The term which began with this unusual excitement was 1841.
very fully occupied. " I have often been rather busy at ^ 56.
Cambridge " Sedgwick wrote, " but never, I think, so busy as
I have been this term. Six days a week lectures papers for
the Geological Society of London and for the Cambridge
Philosophical Society proof-sheets and a very large corre-
spondence, have hardly left me time for eating or sleeping."
To this catalogue of occupations his social duties might have
been added, for in one of his letters he mentions, among other
engagements, dinners and evening-parties at the Lodge under
the new regime. "What a change," he adds, "since the late
Master's time, who lived like a hermit." Nor must another
matter be forgotten the purchase for the Woodwardian
Museum of a skeleton of a Plesiosaurus* from the Whitby lias,
of unusual size and completeness.
To the Members of the Senate and other resident Members of the
University.
TRIN. COLL. CAMBRIDGE,
Nov. 19, 1841.
Gentlemen,
As Curator of the Woodwardian Museum, I take the
liberty of laying before you the following statement. In course of
last summer a magnificent Plesiosaurus was dug out of the cliffs near
Whitby, and was offered to the British Museum for ^500. The
offer was refused, not merely on account of the large price demanded,
but because the Museum already possessed an excellent series of
specimens of that fossil genus. During the autumn Dr Clark (our
Professor of Anatomy) saw the specimen while it was publicly
exhibited and advertised for sale. Several large offers had then
been made for it from more than one quarter : as the only means of
securing it for Cambridge, he made a still larger offer, and soon
afterwards completed the negotiation, at his private risk, by purchasing
the specimen for ^230. I claim no divided honour with him in
this spirited and liberal act , for the negotiation was begun without
my knowledge, and I did not receive his letter, informing me that he
had first offered 200 for the specimen, and meant if possible to
purchase it for the University, till after my return to Cambridge.
But I feel deeply grateful to him for what he has done ; and I
should have rejoiced to divide with him the responsibility of the
1 It was believed to be a fine specimen of P. dolichodtirus, Conybeare, until
1865, when it was described by Mr H. Seely (Annals and Magazine of Natural
History, xv. 49) as P. macroptems .
38 HOSPITALITY AT NORWICH.
1842. purchase. There is certainly no place in the University so proper
Et. 57 f r tne reception of the fossil, as the GEOLOGICAL MUSEUM. But in
the present state of the Woodwardian surplus, nearly exhausted by the
expensive fittings of the New Museum, I do not think myself justified
in applying to the Heads of Houses, and requesting them to become
the purchasers of the fossil out of the funds of which they are the
Auditors. I therefore take the only step that is left; and venture
respectfully to call upon the Members of the University, who are
interested in the honour of our Collections, to assist me by a sub-
scription, and to enable me to give the fossil a permanent place in
our Geological Museum. For the present it is deposited in the
Lecture Room under the new wing of the Public Library; and
may, on application, be seen by any Member of the University.
I have the honour to be, Gentlemen,
Your very faithful Servant,
A. SEDGWICK.
This vigorous appeal not to speak of private letters to his
brother Professors, and to personal friends was thoroughly
successful. In a few weeks 264. iSs. 6d. was collected;
a sum sufficient to discharge all expenses, and to leave a
small balance in hand with which the Woodwardian Trustees
agreed to purchase other fossils.
A succession of visitors from Cambridge, among whom
were the new Master of Trinity and his wife, enlivened
Sedgwick's usual winter residence at Norwich. We get a
glimpse of some of them in a letter to Whewell :
NORWICH, 15 February, 1842.
"...I am glad you are bringing the statutes to the anvil.
Why our late Master hung fire so long I never could well
make out. Of course nothing will be done finally before I
come back at the end of this month.... After you left us I
had a party of five + maidkin from the Marchesa's. Then
a breathing-fit of nearly a week, when Major Willoughby
Moore and Mrs Moore and Maud gave me a benefit of ten
days. During the time, the Astronomer Royal dropped
down from the end of the great Bear's tail into the Close,
and alighted as softly as if he had come with the wings of
Iris, and had slid down her golden arch. His stay was
REVISION OF COLLEGE STATUTES. 39
very short ; for the moment his feet touched the back of. 1842.
old Mother Earth there was such a magnetic storm in <^t. 57.
Greenwich Park that they were obliged to send post for
him to come to quell this insurrection among the needles.
The Major and his Lady left me last Saturday. But my
sister is now here ; so I am again a family man...."
The revision of the Elizabethan Statutes of Trinity
College, alluded to in the above letter, had been agreed to
by the Seniority four years before. Whewell, as great a
contrast to his predecessor in business as in hospitality was
anxious to persuade the Seniors to undertake the work at
once, and then " to go on as fast as we can, consistently with
the gravity and complexity of the matter." It is probable
that he had talked it over with Sedgwick at Norwich, for
he alludes in a letter to "the special points which you
mentioned as those on which you had a decided opinion."
In fact, as he told Sedgwick, he would have deferred the
commencement of the work until his return to College had
it been possible, being "very desirous of having the benefit
of your judgment in our proceedings 1 ." Unfortunately we
do not know what Sedgwick's views were, but the Memoranda
kept by the Master shew that he attended the revision-
meetings regularly from his return till the draft of the
Statutes, as altered, was ready for submission to the Home
Secretary.
Besides this work, Sedgwiek found time, before the end of
April, to redeem his promise to Wordsworth, and to write the
first three of the five letters On the Geology of the Lake
District, to which reference has been already made 2 . No
detailed account is needed of a work which merely aims at
describing, clearly and tersely, for the use of tourists, the
ascertained geological phenomena of a special district. Words-
worth's two letters on the subject are unfortunately without
1 From Rev. W. Whewell, 8 February, 1842. The letter is printed in full
in Whewell's Life, p. 259.
2 Vol. i., pp. 246 249.
40 GEOLOGY OF LAKE DISTRICT.
1842. date but it is clear that the first must have been written
*. 57. before Sedgwick had proceeded far, the second after the
completion of his first letter.
My dear Sir,
You have much obliged me by the promptitude with which
you have met the request made through an Acquaintance or
Friend of my Publishers 1 ; and I should be very happy to be the
Medium of conveying to the public your view of the Geology of this
interesting District, however concisely given. First, however, I must
tell you exactly how the matter stands between me and the Publishers.
The last Edition of my little work 2 being nearly out I undertook
about a twelvemonth since to furnish some new Matter in the way
of a more minute Guide for the Body of the Tourist, as I found that
the Guide Books which attended mainly to this were preferred much,
by the generality of Tourists, to mine, which, though in fact con-
taining as much of this sort of matter as could be of any real use,
appeared to be wanting in this respect. The employment to which
I had by a sort of promise committed myself I found upon further
consideration to be very troublesome and infra dig. ; and as I was still
desirous that my Book should be circulated, not for any pecuniary
emolument, for that was quite trifling, but for the principles of Taste
which it recommended, I turned all that I had written over to
Mr Hudson the Publisher, stipulating only that all that related to
mind, should in my book be printed entire and separated from other
matter, and so it now stands. Every thing of mine will be reprinted,
but the guide matter of mine will be interwoven with what Mr Hudson
has undertaken to write or compile, the whole however before struck
off to be submitted to my approbation. Mr Gough of Kendal, Son
of the celebrated blind man of that place, will, Mr Hudson expects,
promote the Botany, and if you would condescend to act upon your
promise made to me long ago under somewhat different circumstances,
I think a Book would be produced answering every purpose that
could be desired.
I am truly sorry, my dear Sir, to hear that your health is so much
deranged. I believe that the bottom of it all is, your intense ardour
of mind, and activity both of mind and body. In fact you have
been living too fast; pray slacken your pace, and depend upon it you
1 Mr F. C. Danby of Kendal. He acknowledges the receipt of the MS. of
Sedgwick's first letter, 2 May, 1842. The date appended to the printed letter,
23 May, was probably added when it received the author's final corrections.'
2 Wordsworth's Description of the Scenery of the Lakes in the North of England
first appeared in 1810, as the Introduction to a folio volume of Select Views in
Cumberland, etc., by the Rev. Jos. Wilkinson. It was reprinted, with additions,
in 1820, in The River Duddon, a Series of Sonnets ; and reissued by itself in 1822.
In this form it went through several editions. See The Life of William
Wordsworth, by W. Knight, 3 vols. 8vo. 1889, " 1 53-
LETTERS FROM WORDSWORTH. 41
will not only, in a little time, be more comfortable in yourself, but 1842.
the world will in the end get more out of the very great deal that you ^t. 57.
have to give it. We are pretty well and unite in kindest remem-
brances and good wishes.
Ever faithfully, My dear Mr Sedgwick,
Your much obliged,
W. WORDSWORTH.
Pray give me a letter, however short.
Wednesday.
My dear Sir,
I snatch a moment from the hurry of this place to thank
you for the first of the series of Letters on the Geology of the Lake
district which you have done me the honor of addressing to me. I
received it yesterday from Mr Danby, liked it very much, and am
impatient for the rest. It will give the Kendal lake Book so decided
a superiority over every other, that the Publishers have good reason
to rejoice 1 . I am happy to think that my endeavours to illustrate
the beautiful Region may be thought not unworthy of accompanying
your scientific researches. I address this to you at random, but
hope it will be forwarded should you be no longer at Cambridge.
You perhaps don't remember that the Pocket Hammerers were
complained of not by me in my own person, but in the character of
a splenetic Recluse 2 ; I will, however, frankly own that to a certain
extent / sympathised with my imaginary personage, but I am sure I
need not define for you how far, but no farther, I went along with
him. Geology and Mineralogy are very different things.
Ever, my dear Mr Sedgwick,
Faithfully yours,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
I hope your health is improved.
The next two letters explain themselves :
Monday morning, May 2nd, 1842.
My dear Fankin,
I have not time to write a long letter, and I am
in bad spirits, for my old enemy the rheumatic gout, has, for
1 The book now published was called: A Complete Guide to the Lakes,
comprising minute directions for the Tourist ; with Mr Wordsworth's description
of the scenery of the country, etc. : and three letters on the Geology of the Lake
District, by the Rev. Professor Sedgwick. Edited by the Publisher. Kendal,
published by John Hudson.
2 See Vol. i., p. 247.
42 WOODWARDIAN AUDIT AND
1842. some weeks past, been tormenting me above measure. And
k 57' I have no comfortable rest at night ; for my enemy is then
most active in tormenting me, and almost takes away all
power of sleeping. The consequence is, that I rise in the
morning unrefreshed, and out of spirits. My friends are
surprised to see me returning from a long walk about the
time that they are rising. But I have no merit in rising with
the lark. It is not to sing a cheerful glad song to the sky ;
but because bed is no resting-place to my weary limbs ; and
I am glad, almost as soon as it is light, to change my posture,
and try to shake off my infirmities by brushing over the
country, though the movement puts my feet to much uneasiness.
And, do you know, I am so sour-faced and ill-tempered, and
abominably cross, and so hate myself, that I do not think you
would now, if you saw me, give me one corner of your heart,
or a single kiss. You might just as well kiss an old decayed
thistle, which would leave its prickles sticking to your lips.
Is not this a sorry account to give of myself? But alas ! it is
not more sorry than true 1 . ...The inspection of my Museum is
going on. To-morrow is the annual audit of my accounts ;
and if I am reported a good boy, they may perhaps pay me
my salary. And on Wednesday evening I am to have at my
rooms a large meeting of what we call the Ray Club 2 , so that
my hands are very full of engagements.... There ! the clock is
striking, and I must off for my morning's walk. So no more
at present...
1 The omitted passages in this letter describe the visit of some friends, who
breakfasted with Sedgwick, and saw the principal sights of Cambridge under his
guidance.
2 Professor -Henslow had been in the habit of receiving at his house, on the
evening of each Friday in full Term, those members of the University who took
an interest in Natural History. These meetings began in 1828 and were
continued until the end of 1836. It was then determined to found a Club, to be
called The Ray Club, after the celebrated John Ray, "for the cultivation of
Natural Science by means of friendly intercourse and mutual instruction."
Sedgwick was elected 4 December, 1839. See The Cambridge Ray Club, by
Prof. C. C. Babington, 8vo., Camb. 1887; Memoir of the Rev. J. S. Henslow,
by Rev. L. Jenyns, 8vo., Lond. 1862, Chap. III.
INSPECTION OF MUSEUM. 43
Tuesday morning, 8 a.m. 1842.
After breakfast yesterday, I was very busy with my ^ Et< 5
Inspectors. The old original Woodwardian Collection, con-
sisting of about 10,000 specimens, has, during the past year,
been removed into a new Museum ; which I will show you
when you next come to see me. All the specimens and
drawers were on the floor while the old cabinets were
repairing, and fitting to their new places ; and they remained
there for several weeks. And how many specimens do you
think are lost, now that they have been compared with our
catalogue of five volumes ? Not one ! There's a careful uncle
for you, Miss Scatterbrains ! The more modern part of my
collection consists of 50,000 or 60,000 specimens, and it will
take three or four years' hard work to put them in any
order.... Last night I slept much better, and this morning I
rose at six, and had a walk of more than four miles before
breakfast. Indeed I have hardly done breakfast yet, for I
have been scribbling to you between my cups of coffee. And
have I not done well to get on so far without once slopping
the paper ? But we are notable folks at Dent, and can do
four things at a time 1 . Thank God, I am very much better
to-day. And now for pounds shillings and pence, and yearly
accounts as long as a tailor's measure ! But perhaps they
do not measure for petticoats with long slips of parchment,
like those they use in taking the length of a man's shanks,
and therefore my comparison will not much help you. But
enough ! so again good morning, Mrs Fankinette.
Thursday morning.
I was so busy yesterday that I had not time to finish my
letter. On Tuesday I went over the long annual accounts
of the Museum, and ended by dining with the Vice-Chancellor.
Dr Woodward, who founded my Professorship, was a sensible,
good-living, man ; and he ordered the Vice-Chancellor at the
1 The allusion is to an old rhyme current in the dale of Dent, quoted above,
Vol. i., p. 16.
44 WOODWARDIAN DINNER.
*- annual Woodwardian audit to give a good dinner, and to see
57 ' that all his guests gladdened their hearts with the best French
wines, such as burgundy, and claret, and champagne. Sure
enough, all this is in his Will, by which he bequeathed to us
our Collection 1 ! So we all make a kind of conscience of
eating and drinking quite as much as is good for us at that
annual dinner. But what a poor miserable starveling I am
now become ! Once I drank champagne like a good Christian
of the true Woodwardian sect. I afterwards fell away from
this pitch of excellence ; and only listened to the popping of
the bottles, and the gentle sisling noise made by the long
frothy glasses as they shot past my ears to the mouths of my
auditors. But still, I kept up some claim to orthodoxy, by
drinking three glasses of sherry. At this low, half puritani-
cal, pitch .of conformity, I remained some fifteen or sixteen
years, and then I fell away to the rank heresy of water. You
have heard that people are known to die of hydrophobia ; but
my disease now is hydrophilia, quite as deadly as the other,
give it time enough ; but it is not so rapid in putting out the
vital flame. Now alas ! I am sunk, in the eyes of all good
Inspectors and Auditors, to the lowest pitch of human de-
gradation ; for I drank only water, and ate only vegetables,
and the plainest bit of pudding I could pick out. Yes ! I
think I may go one step lower ; and next year the Vice-
Chancellor will have to provide me with two or three inflated
air-cushions, which I may suck while they are dining and
drinking Burgundy. Such diet would be very appropriate :
for I have always to make a long speech that day ; and wind,
you know, is the most important element of every speech ; so
that good speeches are sometimes said to contain nothing
else."
Then, after more pleasant talk, about common friends,
the Ray Club, etc., this careful uncle throws in some serious
advice on study and conduct, and concludes as follows :
1 What Dr Woodward really said about the dinner in his Will has already been
related, Vol. i., p. 184.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT MANCHESTER. 45
"Pray don't think that my gravity in this page is incon- 1842.
sistent with the levity of my two first sheets. I don't &* 57-
want to mope you. I wish you to be merry and wise;
cheerful, happy, and good. I should wish the mind of my
own daughter to be tenanted by beautiful and good images,
so that the sweetest thoughts might spring up in her mind
spontaneously, and in the sweet company of all the good
thoughts she had treasured up by good training. So, my love,
lift up your little mouth, and give me a kiss. Thank you.
Ever affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
P.S. Have I not told a great big fib in my first line !"
To Rev. P. B. Brodie.
[May, 1842].
"...Our Museum is now all glorious to behold we are
to stick up against its walls a noble Plesiosaiirus 16 ft.
long a perfect beauty of its kind. Ansted is still in
Cambridge, and working very hard, so that we are, we now
think, worth looking at, and so you will say when you come
take your M.A. degree. There are no bad countries for
geology change your tools with your ground keep your
eyes wide open and you may find a harvest everywhere
there are no barren fields to a true lover of nature. And,
like a good son of Alma Mater, think of your nursing mother,
and send all your best things to our Museum (a reasonable
request ! is it not ?)..."
The British Association met this year at Manchester.
Sedgwick was one of the Vice-Presidents, and we find him
frequently taking part in the discussions of the Geological
Section. He was still far from well, but when the subject of
the elevation of great mountain-chains came forward, he
spoke with much animation. " I was disgusted " he told
Murchison " with the heels-over-head way they generalized,
but I was so ill that I could not on that morning make any
fight."
46 SPEECH AT MANCHESTER.
1842. In the evening, however, when the members of the Asso-
rt. 57. ciation met at dinner, and he was called upon to propose
the Literary and Philosophical, and other scientific societies
of Manchester, coupled with the name of the illustrious
Dalton, whose statue, by Chantrey, had lately been placed
in the entrance-hall of the Manchester Royal Institution, his
eloquence betrayed no sign of fatigue or illness. " Seeing
that magnificent statue," he said, "worthy if any statue
be worthy of that great philosopher; and worthy of that
dear departed friend of mine, Chantrey,... it occurred to me
that there was something kindred in the characters of those
men. Both rising to fame and name from a humble begin-
ning ; both men of great sincerity of character ; both having
a strong love of nature ; these were some of the circumstances
which characterized them ; and through that statue will their
names be handed down to posterity, as by something which
associates and binds them together in the minds of yourselves
and your children, and your children's children, to ages yet
unborn."
In the next place he described a walk he had taken
through the streets of Manchester "amidst the smoke of
chimneys and the roar of engines;" and then he came to
speak of the artisans :
" In talking to men whose brows were smeared with dirt,
and whose hands were black with soot, I found upon them
the marks of intellectual minds, and the proofs of high
character ; and I conversed with men who, in their own
way, and in many ways bearing upon the purposes of life,
were far my superiors. I would wish the members of the
British Association to mingle themselves with these artisans,
in these perhaps overlooked corners of our great cities ; for,
as I talked with them, the feeling prevailing in my mind was
that of the intellectual capacity manifest in the humbler
orders of population in Manchester. This is a great truth,
which I wish all the members of this Association to bear
away with them, that while the institutions and customs of
INSTALLATION OF DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 47
man set up a barrier, and draw a great and harsh line 1842.
between man and man, the hand of the Almighty stamps ** 57-
His finest impress upon the soul of many a man who never
rises beyond the ranks of comparative poverty and ob-
scurity....
" Do not suppose for a moment that I am holding any
levelling doctrines. Far from it. I seek but to consolidate
the best institutions of society. But I do wish that the
barriers between man and man, between rank and rank,
should not be harsh, and high, and thorny; but rather
that they should be a kind of sunk fence, sufficient to
draw lines of demarcation between one and another, and
yet such that the smile of gladness and the voice of cheer-
fulness might pass over, and be felt and heard on the other
side." 1
After the meeting of the British Association, Sedgwick
returned to Cambridge, where the Public Commencement,
at which the Duke of Northumberland was installed
Chancellor of the University, detained him till the end of
the first week in July. His vacation began with "a quiet
idle week" at Cheltenham, partly because the waters had
done him good on a previous visit, partly because he needed
rest before beginning his geological campaign. This, like
the tour in Ireland and Scotland in the previous year, was
intended to be merely preliminary to his literary work. " If
God spare my health," he had written to Murchison early in
the year, " I begin my work this spring. Already I have
engaged an amanuensis to attend at six every morning.
But of this by the way. I must again look at the upper
rocks of Westmoreland, which I have hardly looked at since
1822! and also I must visit for a few days the sections in
the north of Denbighshire." The amanuensis, as we know,
had a sinecure ; and the visit to Wales extended over several
years.
1 From the Supplement to The Manchester Guardian, 29 June, 1842.
48 NORTH WALES.
1842. Sedgwick was accompanied for a short time by his friend
Et. 57. M r Griffith; and, for the first time, he took with him an
assistant in the person of " an excellent young naturalist 1 ,"
Mr J. W. Salter, who had drawn and engraved the plates for
The Silurian System, and in consquence proved " of infinite
use " to him " by his admirable and ready knowledge of the
characteristic fossil species 2 ." His primary object was to
revise the work he had done alone in 1831 32, which, to
his great satisfaction, he found had been right in principle,
and stood the test now applied to it. He gives the following
resume of what he and Mr Salter accomplished :
We examined in great detail the two lines of the Bala Limestone
caused by synclinal flexure, securing our work by tracing both beds
along their strike, and in this way we demonstrated that the more
eastern limestone bands in the Llanwddyn valley were identical with
the eastern bands that cross the road between Bala and Llangynog.
We also carefully mapped a part of the country east and north of the
northern Berwyns ; and we completed in great detail sections which
connected the Silurian rocks south of the Tannat and north of the
Ceiriog, shewing the emergence of the old Cambrian rocks which
pass through the intervening country and form the highest crests of
the Berwyns. We also examined the great fault S. E. of Llanwddyn,
which produces an entire inversion of the strata through a range of
several miles. This fact I had first observed in 1832, and had
verified it by following the inverted beds along their strike till they
had regained their normal position, and we found that we had no
corrections to make in this portion of my old sections of 1832. I
mention these facts only to shew how conscientiously our work was
done. We sought the truth, and would have embraced it, to what-
ever conclusions it might lead us 3 .
The Welsh tour was of necessity shortened by Sedgwick's
being obliged to go into Residence at Norwich for the months
of October and November. This change, by no means
agreeable to himself, was rendered necessary by the circum-
stance that Dr Philpott, Master of St Catharine's Hall, who
1 To Isabella Sedgwick, i September, 1842.
2 Preface to Salter's Catalogue, p. xxiii. An interesting biography of Salter is
given in the Anniversary Address of the President of the Geological Society for
1870 (Professor Huxley). Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., Vol. 26, pp. xxxvi xxxix.
3 Preface, ut supra, p. xxiv.
BLOWING UP OF CLIFF AT DOVER. 49
fas junior Canon, was detained at Cambridge by his duties 1843.
as Vice-Chancellor. It had been Sedgwick's intention to work ^- 5
out his Welsh notes during his Residence ; but a long bout
of influenza and painful gouty symptoms put an end to all
serious occupations; and, when his Residence ended, he
hastened to Dent. He had not spent Christmas with his
family for thirty years. Finally he reached Cambridge in
January, after an absence of nearly six months 1 .
He was making good progress with his geological work,
when he received an invitation to witness the great blasting
operations about to take place at Dover. The temptation
was irresistible. " Perhaps I may be converted into a nebula"
he wrote to a friend in Yorkshire ; "so look out for a new one
high in the sky, and with bearing of a line drawn from York
to Dover. There, John ! pack away, or we miss the coach !
off like gunpowder!" 2 What he saw, and what he did after-
wards, is recorded in the following letters :
LONDON, January 28th, 1843.
My dear Fankinette,
Last Wednesday morning the post brought me a
letter from Mrs Airy (the wife of the Astronomer Royal, you
must have heard me speak of her a hundred times) urging
me to meet them at London, and push on that night by the
new railroad to Dover. There they were to meet Sir John
and Lady Herschel, and next day were to see a grand sight
the blowing up, or rather perhaps I should say, the blowing
down, of a great chalk cliff, higher by about 100 feet than the
famous Shakespeare cliff so beautifully described in King
Lear. So turn to that noble passage of the greatest of all
poets, and get it off by heart before you eat your next meal,
and you will find your digestion all the better for the work.
Well, I instantly packed my bag, ordered horses to the
terminus at Hockerill, and thence skated away to London.
1 To R. I. Murchison, January, 1843.
2 To Rev. C. Ingle, 25 January, 1843.
S. II. 4-
BLOWING UP OF CLIFF AT DOVER.
1843. But alas ! I was half an hour too late, and had to wait an hour
* 58. anc i a h a if a t the inn near London Bridge, where I am now
writing on my return. The evening train, however, conveyed
me to Dover, but too late to see my friends.
Next morning (Thursday) I found all my friends well and
in high spirits. The day was fine for January, and sufficiently
clear for us to catch occasional glimpses of Cape Blanc-Nez
on the French coast. After breakfast with the Directors
of the great works, Mr Cubitt the head engineer, General
Paisley who has been employed in blowing up the wreck of
the Royal George, and several scientific men, we started on
a voyage of discovery. We examined finished tunnels, and
unfinished tunnels, and cuttings, and viaducts, and I know
not what ; and we then mounted a cliff 530 feet high by steps
cut in the chalk, and proceeded to look at the great galvanic
batteries that were to fire the magazine.
From Dover, right under the Shakespeare cliff, is a mag-
nificent double tunnel nearly a mile long ; each tunnel forms
a gothic arch 30 feet high, some-
what as follows :
My beautiful drawing (No. i)
speaks for itself; only suppose
the beds of chalk to rise about
300 feet above the two openings. NO. i.
Beyond Shakespeare's cliff is another, called Round Cliff,
considerably higher ; I believe nearly 400 perpendicular feet
above the water's edge. This bulged out into the sea, forming
a kind of buttress ; and in at-
tempting to extend the tunnel
through it, they found it full of
cracks and small fissures, and so
incoherent as to endanger their
works. A large mass of it actu-
ally slid down several feet, some-
what in the following manner
(No. 2):
No. 2. A , B, a great crack. A , B, C,
D, an enormous mass of chalk which had
subsided a few feet towards the sea.
BLOWING UP OF CLIFF AT DOVER. 51
What then was to be done ? Mr Cubitt drove a gallery
through the base of the great mass, and in it deposited 185
irrels of gunpowder, each containing 100 Ibs. of powder.
'hey were placed in three chambers of the excavation, as
follows, at A, B, C, and a rope containing a wire went through
i8 43 .
Et. 58.
No. 3.
ie three chambers, and so ascended from the two ends of
the gallery to the top of the cliff, and thence to a galvanic
apparatus at a safe distance on the land-side. All this done,
the galleries were again filled up, and well plugged with
ubbish, just as they tamp down the powder in the hole where
they blast a common rock. From the point B to the outside
of the cliff was just 75 ft. measured in a straight line. I
cannot pretend to give you a regular lecture on galvanism,
but you can understand (or take on trust) that when the
wires E, D, were properly connected with the great galvanic
batteries at the top of the cliff, the galvanic fluid then made
a circuit, passing along the wire, and therefore passing right
through the piles of gunpowder at A, B, C. You may also
understand that where the wire is very small and fine it turns
instantly red-hot. Now just in the centre of the gunpowder
heaps it was contrived that the wire should be very fine. I
have not time to explain how this was done, neither have I
time or room to explain some other contrivances (such as
separate streams of galvanic fluid sent to each chamber to
ensure success) which are not necessary to make you under-
42
52 BLOWING UP OF CLIFF AT DOVER.
1843. stand the principle. I wish I could draw better, let me
Et. 5 8. try:
No. 4. A, the galvanic apparatus. B, C, the ends of the gallery, which was cut
75 feet inside of the cliff.
With such a beautiful drawing you must be dull if you do
not understand. The object was then to fire the great
magazine of gunpowder in this way, and so to bring down
the great mass represented in No. 2 (A, B, C, D\ A great
multitude of persons were collected ; the scenery was glorious ;
we were almost lifted off the earth with expectation ; signals
were hoisted ; guns were fired ; soldiers kept the multitude
at a safe distance. At length came a signal (a discharge of
40 pounds of powder) which told us that in one minute
exactly the connecting wires would be joined, and the
magazine fired. We could hardly draw breath. A sound,
between a groan and a sob, was heard ; the ground gave a
gentle heave, the base of the cliff bulged out like a barrel,
and the rocks began to gape. Instantly after, the flagstaff
at A (No. 2) began to sink, and the whole cliff slid down to
the base, seeming to have changed its nature, and suddenly
become semi-fluid ; and in about a minute the whole descend-
ing mass was spread over about twenty-five acres of ground,
the outer part encroaching on the sea. I never saw a more
glorious sight. There was very little noise, and not a puff of
BLOWING UP OF CLIFF AT DOVER. 53
>moke was seen, so completely was the magazine buried 1843.
inder the enormous ruin it had occasioned. All was calm ^ tj 5 8 -
ind solemn, beyond that of any physical movement I ever
r itnessed. A launch is a fine sight ; but the launch of a line-
>f-battle ship is a cockle-shell movement compared with the
tiding down of this magnificent cliff.
CAMBRIDGE, Saturday evening.
Soon after the explosion I descended to the rubbish
inder the cliff, and saw the unbroken flagstaff lying on the
grass nearly 400 ft. below its first position. I then walked
back to Dover by the top of Shakespeare's cliff, and found
my friends assembled at the inn. I was easily persuaded to
spend the evening with them, so I dined with Mr Cubitt the
engineer, and met Sir John and Lady Herschel, and my
dear friends Mr and Mrs Airy, and a right merry and happy
evening we all spent together.
Next day I went in a fly to Folkestone, and examined
some other great excavations, hoping to pick up some good
fossils; but the ground was wet, and like bird-lime; so that
I pulled off the cloth top of my right boot, and was compelled
to go 4 miles hopping on my left leg and sliding on the other,
to the great amusement of the sailors and workmen I passed
on the road. At length, however, I reached my fly again,
and pushed on to the terminus, hoping to meet my friends the
Airys and the Herschels there, but they had, I suppose, stuck
in the mud like myself and were too late for the four o'clock
train, Three hours brought me to London, and last night
I took up my quarters in a new and magnificent inn near
London Bridge, built expressly to catch railroad passengers.
Plenty of soap and water, a hot bath, and then a good scrub-
bing and brushing put me once more to rights ; after which I
smoked a cigar with a philosophic quaker whom I met on
the road. We discussed religion, politics, chemistry, and
geology till our smoke failed ; after which we retired to our
sleeping-dens. This morning, while in the coffee-room, I
54 GEOLOGICAL PLANS.
1843. wrote all the early part of this beautiful letter, beautiful from
& 58- its subject, and still more from its penmanship, and its sublime
drawings. Pray begin from this day the art of design, and
copy these charming models. Labour, dearest Fan, day and
night, until you can produce the like, and then I will sit to
you for my picture.... So good night, my little sauce-box!
Ever affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To R. I. Murchison, Esq.
TRIN. COLL., January 3u/, 1843.
"...I think of publishing as a large pamphlet or little
book, my synopsis of the classification of the old rocks of
England and Wales etc, with a few sections and plates of
fossils. Some of the fossils were actually, I believe, engraved
last year by Sowerby, and I meant to present them to your
Society, with my memoir a little rubbed up. But then came
a five months' intellectual death. This opuscule will be an
introduction to my larger work, should I ever have health and
courage to go through it, which I trust I shall. Perhaps
I may retire for a year into Germany, and hire lodgings at
some of the watering-places. This has been recommended,
and then I could easily make a smash of my volume. When
I am well I can write fast enough. And it seems to me now
that all my materials are well in hand. But at Cambridge I
am bothered out of all my senses...."
Sunday Morning, 19 February , 1843.
My dear Ingle,
...I am now much better, though the root of the
malady is in me, and I cannot get back my power of sleeping.
I believe a few doses of colchicum would take away the
irritation (especially during night) of my sinews and muscular
fibres, but Haviland for the present forbids its use, as he thinks
my malady chiefly nervous. And so, no doubt, it is ; but
where is the cause, the lurking cause, of the mischief ? A gouty
CHRONIC GOUT,
55
diathesis, as the doctors call it, and a constitution without
energy to smother it, or throw it out in an active form, so as,
after a few good useful racks of pain, to have done with it.
I had this dire disorder five months, beginning with last
spring.
On Friday I went up to the anniversary of the Geological
Society, and the excitement of the day, for the time, did me
much good, and I spoke as well as I have ever done. But
then came a collapse, and now (Sunday morning) I have risen
after a very bad sleepless night, and I am cramped by
rheumatic pains brought on by the cold of yesterday during
my journey back to Cambridge. But mum as to these
confessions ; I tell them to no one but you ; and I train myself
to be cheerful among my brotr.c r- fellows, or at least to seem
so, and they only think me no 1 / ind then haunted by fancies.
But it is not fancy that makes ne look at my watch every
hour of the long night and ii is no fancy that makes me,
hour after hour, count the clank -f our clock bells..."
To Rev. P. B. Brodie.
CAMBRIDGE, May 30, 1843.
"...I shall be most happy to be Godfather to your
first-born. You say you wish he may follow my example in
all respects. I say, God forbid ! There are 10,000 things
alas ! in which he ought not to follow me. But in all the
good I ever learnt from my own Father and Mother, and
in all the ill from which (by God's grace and no good of
my own) I have been saved in such things may he follow
me, and in no other. To my friends I shew my best face :
but by myself I am often oppressed with miserable spirits,
and with the consciousness of doing so little of what I ought
to do..."
To Miss F. Hicks.
NORWICH, June 23, 1843.
"...Do you know that Lough the sculptor has asked
me to sit for my Bust? He thinks me so handsome,
1843.
58.
56 GEOLOGY IN NORTH WALES.
1843. that I half suspect he wants me for a model of some of the
SA.. 58. heathen gods. He had a figure of Bacchus in this Exhibition,
but, as I drink water, he hardly can want me to sit for a new
Bacchus. So I suppose I must sit for Neptune, and my
hammer must be replaced by a trident. Or perhaps he will
dress me like one of the Welsh Rebeccites, and call me a
water-nymph. Surely I should do vastly well for a water-
nymph ! Don't you think so ?. . ."
In June Sedgwick read to the Geological Society his long-
promised paper, modestly called Outline of the Geological
Structure of North Wales ; and a fortnight or so afterwards
returned to his former field of exploration, accompanied as
before by Mr Salter. When he started he said that he should
attend the meeting of the British Association at Cork in
August, and then "brush up" his old surveys in Westmoreland;
but the difficulties of his work in Wales, added to more than
usually bad weather, detained him so much longer than
he had expected, that he was obliged to give up Ireland in
spite of a pressing appeal from Mr Griffith, who protested
that " our section will be a complete failure without you." In
Wales he continued, and " seemed to bring to a happy end "
the revision begun in the previous year. " We came away
rejoicing in the thought that we had done our work effectually
and to a good purpose." Moreover, in spite of the " wetting
and drying, and soaking, and wringing " inflicted on him by
bad weather, he found his health improve, and that he could
" bear a walk of ten or twelve miles over rugged mountains
without feeling any very excessive fatigue 1 ."
From Wales Sedgwick went for a short visit to Dent, and
thence to Westmoreland. But stormy weather at the beginning
of October, with " snow which fell so thick upon the mountains
that several flocks of sheep were, in the language of the
country, overdriven, i.e. buried under the drifted snow,"
compelled him to return to Dent ; and soon after a summons
1 Preface to Sailer's Catalogue, p. xxiv. To Miss Sedgwick, 3 August, 1843.
THE QUEEN AT CAMBRIDGE. 57
from Dr Whewell hurried him back to Cambridge "with the 1843.
speed of a rocket 1 ." What happened when he got there shall Mt - 5 8 -
be told in his own words.
THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO CAMBRIDGE**.
Well the hurly-burly is all done ! and after a double dose
of sleep, I am coaxing the morning air to play on my face through
an open window looking into our Great Court. Yesterday the place
was glittering with all the splendour of a royal pageant, and every
breathing thing seemed to be joining in acclamations. To-day,
a glorious morning sun seems to be shining on a dead world, and
everything about me is silent and motionless as the grave. I got so
far, and halted from excess of sentiment. Again I looked out of the
window, and what do you think I saw? Two dirty bedmakers
hobbling to the fountain, and drawing water from it; one under-
graduate skipping over the great grass-plot to his Tutor's room ; and
five pigeons pecking bread-crumbs under my chamber-windows.
It is plain therefore that all the world is not dead. What a pity
that I am interrupted. In half an hour the Dean of Ely is
coming, and half an hour afterwards I am going with the said Dean
to Ely.
Saturday evening. At Ely my letter made no progress, for the
Dean had a Cambridge party, and after tea I was so tired that I had
scarcely strength to prop my eyelids.
The news of the Royal visit only reached me at Dent last
Friday week ; and what do you think was my first step on hearing
this joyful news? Why I wrote forthwith to my tailor to build me a
pair of shorts and a silk cassock. Pantaloons, you know, are an
abomination in the eyes of Kings and Queens. These important
matters and many others of lighter moment being ended, I removed
to Kirby Lonsdale on Saturday ; did duty for a friend at that place
on Sunday; posted to Lancaster in the evening in time for the
night train ; and so found my way to London on Monday morning.
On Monday night I reached Cambridge, and on Tuesday, from sun-
rise to sunset, I was most actively employed, along with my sapient
John, and three or four artificers and cunning men, in putting my
Museum in royal order. I believe every member of the University
was in as great a bustle as I was myself, but I must not speak for
others. All Tuesday night I heard the wind howling, and the drops
of rain pattering against my windows, and the early dawn broke
through a dark and dismal sky. The sun, however, did his work to
admiration, and before long sent all the clouds a packing to the
1 To Miss Kate Malcolm, 30 October, 1843.
2 This narrative was originally written in the form of letters to Miss Kate
Stanley and Miss Kate Malcolm.
58 THE QUEEN AT CAMBRIDGE.
1843. unseen regions of the earth. The day became glorious. The town
Et. 58. was a ^ anve > an d the Great Court of Trinity College seemed the
very centre of life and gladness. The Seniors met and deliberated ;
thinking of many things little worth thinking of, and forgetting many
things about which they should have thought. Still there was the
semblance of order in the midst of our disorder, and by one o'clock,
all things, and all persons, seemed to have slid into their intended
places. We knew nothing, except at second-hand, of what went on
beyond the gates of Trinity College ; but from all I can hear, the
passage of the royal train from Royston to the triumphal arch at the
south end of Cambridge was such as royal eyes have seldom seen
before. For the last ten or twelve miles more than 3000 yeomanry,
headed by the Lord Lieutenant of the County, joined the escort.
On they all came at the rate of 15 miles an hour without check or
accident sometimes sweeping over hedge and ditch sometimes
rushing along the road in one dense and well-compacted mass ; so
that on reaching the Cambridge Barrier every man was a pillar of
mud, and every horse a mass of living vapour. Among the con-
spicuous persons of this mass of yeomanry was a master-tailor, who by
a miracle reached the barrier in safety, and was there seen bearing a
bright red flag high above his head. It was made of red cloth
destined for the nether-garments of a livery-servant, but by a strange
accident elevated to this high honour. 'Tis now said that this man
of shears had married a prudent wife, who ordered his journeymen
to stitch him to the saddle before he started. And by this deed
of prudent forethought he became one of the miracles of the day.
(I beg your pardon, my dear, for writing this nonsense.) The
procession from Royston was so joyous, that I declare I would
have foregone half the glories of the Royal visit to have been one
of the party.
By one o'clock the members of the University were marshalled in
our Great Court, to the number of more than 2000, in silent and
solemn order. My windows commanded an excellent view, and
were filled with ladies. At length, about two o'clock, the sound of
distant voices, and the clattering of bells, produced a slight undula-
ting sympathetic movement in our ranks, and before long the Royal
standard was seen to rise slowly and majestically over the great gate-
way. A few seconds more and the gates flew open ; and down
rushed the Guard followed by the Royal carriages. For a moment
all was as silent as death ; each man was drawing in his breath that
he might with more energy send forth a shout of gratulation. I
never heard such a shout before, reverberated as it was from every
corner of our noble court. The most striking order was still pre-
served, and the Royal carriage advanced to the centre of the court,
where the Master and Seniors were met to do homage, and present
to their Sovereign the College keys. You never saw such an ample
bunch of keys large, ponderous, and rusty and strapped together
by an old greasy bit of leather 'thick enough to have bound the
limbs of unshaven Samson, and looking as if it had been cut from the
THE QUEEN AT CAMBRIDGE. 59
flank of a rhinoceros. Her Majesty contemplated this phenomenon
with eyes of wonder, and then gently waving her Royal hand signi-
fied thereby her will that the ponderous bunch should be restored to
the keeping of the Bursar. On the carnage moved towards our
Lodge door order was at an end the whole University moved like
a great wave, and threatened some dire confusion ; but the front
rank halted at a respectful distance, so firmly that no act of disorder
was committed. The very tumult, and sudden condensation of the
Academic mass, only added to the heartiness and joyousness of the
greeting. Alas ! how slowly I get on with my description. The
Queen is not yet within our Lodge and I have almost done my
paper. But I will not conclude till I have told you of the Address
in Hall.
While the Queen was refreshing the inner woman, and preparing
her dress, we again took our ranks, and I do think we made a most
goodly procession. The College Hall had been cleared of tables,
and a throne erected in the centre of the dais. This was therefore
to be the Presence Chamber, where the Addresses were to be pre-
sented to the Queen and Prince Albert. No room could be better
for the purpose. It was full of historical associations, amply able to
contain the whole University, and had a private entrance from the
Lodge for the Queen. But there was a difficulty. The entrance
was narrow, and the members of the University (not wearing their
eyes in that part of their persons where Argus is said to have carried
a portion of his eye-establishment), are singularly clumsy in all
retrograde movements. Now if the Queen were once on her throne,
it would be absolutely impossible for her to stir, after the Address,
while a single soul remained in Hall; and supposing that we had
once backed out, we must again marshal and make our second entry
for the Address to the Prince. But it was a thousand to one against
our ever backing out at all, especially while three or four hundred
undergraduates were pressing behind to get a sight of Her Majesty.
The odds were that we should come to a dead-lock, and be converted
into one melancholy unwholesome mass of Academic jam. To
avoid this misery the Queen condescended to receive our Address
while standing, and to remain while the second Address was pre-
sented to the Prince. Thus we avoided the misery of a double
retreat. Nor was this all. While we were moving away, and under-
going a curious retrograde compression, the Queen turned round,
took the arm of the Prince, and walked out of Hall. We, like
dutiful subjects, followed her example, faced about, and so escaped
as best we could. These are small points, badly noticed in the
journals; but great events are often marked by small circum-
stances.
At the appointed signal, the head of the procession entered the
College Hall. My place, as one of the Professors, was in the
second rank, behind the circle made up by the Noblemen, Heads of
Colleges, and Doctors. But I saw the Queen as well as I see you
during my visits (always formal and after long intervals) to the
60 THE QUEEN AT CAMBRIDGE.
1843. Palace Library. She seemed in a slight flutter, and her eye rolled
t 8 from one object to another while the academic stream was flowing
towards her. I do think the sight and the occasion were most novel
and imposing. Long before the tail of the procession was uncoiled
from the great Court, the features of the Queen had put on an
expression of repose, and she went through her part of the pageant
with great sweetness and dignity. The Prince was looking well and
happy. He has, you know, a noble figure, and he seemed well-
fitted for his place beside the Queen. Far better than all this, it is
plain that the royal pair love one another. They went together to
every place she wished to see, and when she required some moments
of rest he started on some expedition of his own, so that he lost not
one moment from his entrance at our gates till the hour of his
departure. As a proof of this I may tell you, that while the Queen
was putting on her travelling dress just before she left us, he started
on foot privately with our Master, and went on to the top of King's
College Chapel to have a parting bird's-eye view from its battle-
ments. In short, everything went on brightly and gloriously from
first to last, and the Queen and Prince have carried off all hearts
with them from the highest to the lowest. Before the Queen left us
she told the Master more than once that the kindness of our reception
delighted her. And what glorious weather! the more delightful
after the gloom and wet of the previous day.
As soon as we were out of Hall, each man who had a ticket of
admission, ran as best he could to King's Chapel. I had a place in
the Choir, and I believe I only speak truth when I say that there was
not anyone present who was not touched by the solemnity of the
Service. Boisterous excitement cannot have a lasting place in the
mind of man, and the passage from such a state to a sentiment of
devotion, or something having the semblance of devotion, is not
unnatural. But alas ! such impressions often fade away as soon as
the external cause is withdrawn ; and whether any lasting good
was produced amongst us, by the chanting of the prayers of our
church, and the solemn swell of the organ in this glorious temple of
the living God, can only be known to Him who looketh into the
secrets of the heart.
From our childhood we are I think led to fancy that a Royal
procession must have a slow and solemn movement. Not so, how-
ever, with our little Queen. Her movements are so rapid that her
lady-followers are sorely put to it, and are forced to urge their
muscles into a somewhat ungraceful activity, that they may keep up
with their Royal Mistress. The Queen passed down the choir after
service at her usual rapid pace, but just as she was descending to
the ante-chapel she seemed to recollect herself, halted and turned
round, and for some time stood, leaning on the arm of the Prince,
and gazing at the choir and the painted lights of the east window.
She then wheeled round, and again started at her rapid rate of
movement, hurried to the great western door, and entered her
carriage. If you had read Newton's Optics, I should remind you
THE QUEEN AT CAMBRIDGE. 61
of his theory of the movements of Light ; and tell you that the 1843.
Queen's movements, like those of a sunbeam, have " fits of easy y t . 58.
transmission;" but I fear the figure would be lost upon you so let
that pass.
After reaching our College, the plan was that the Queen should
visit our Library, and, as it was getting dark, a line of torches was in
readiness. But she began to feel some fatigue (no wonder), and
resolved instead to see our Chapel and Newton's statue, and so to
finish the labours of the day. In an instant the red carpet was
unrolled from the Hall steps and trailed from the Lodge door
towards the steps of the Chapel. But alas ! it was too short to serve
its purpose; and while the Master and Seniors were conducting her
across the Court, there was, for about half a second, a horrible
conviction that the Royal footsteps would be brought in most
unseemly contact with the dusty pavement. But our undergraduates,
who lined both sides of the path, saved our credit by a Sir Walter
Raleigh movement. They simultaneously pulled off their gowns,
and spread them two or three deep under the royal footsteps. We
had a splendid Levee in the evening.
After the pageant of Wednesday was over, I am told that the
Queen retired to rest, and slept soundly in the state-bed. If you
only saw the cover of the bed you would understand what I say, and
believe anything which may be told you about the soundness of the
Royal sleep. The outer cover was once a praying-carpet of a great
Mandarin, and was snatched from the fingers of his wife at the
storming of Ningpo, and brought to England for the solemnity of the
Royal visit. It was of bright scarlet, and adorned with golden
dragons. Their claws were symbolical of power, and their wings of
swiftness, and their horizontal position on the bed shewed the
suspension of all the terrors of the Royal will during the time of
sleep.
The sun rose brightly on Thursday morning. The Astronomer
Royal came to my room very early. He had made an observation
on the stars, and found that they continued most propitious. So we
sat down well-contented, and ate a loyal breakfast. This important
business was not quite done, when there was heard a rap at my door,
followed by a formidable note from our Master, telling me of an
intended Royal visit to the Woodwardian den of wild beasts,
immediately after Prince Albert's degree in the Senate House, and
enjoining me to clear a passage by a side-entrance through the
old Divinity Schools. For it was thought inexpedient that the
Royal Party should descend by the Senate House Passage, and enter
on the side of Clare Hall by the front door. This threw me off my
balance. For since the building of the New Library this place of
ancient theological disputations has been converted into a kind of
lumber-room, and was filled, from end to end, with every kind of
unclean thing You would have laughed to see this dark and dismal
chamber, just lighted enough to show its horrors. Mops, slop-pails,
chimney-pots, ladders, broken benches, rejected broken cabinets from
62 THE QUEEN AT CAMBRIDGE.
1843. the Library, two long ladders, and an old rusty scythe, were the
t. 58. things that met the eye, and everything was covered with half an inch
of venerable dust. But there is at the end of the rooms a kind of
gallery or gangway, by which the undergraduates last year used to
find their way to my lecture-room. But alas ! this gangway also was
choke-full of every kind of rubbish and abomination. We did our
best, and soon tumbled all impediments into the area below, producing
a cloud as thick as that which hung over the land of Egypt. Huge
mats, which the week before had covered the floor of the Senate
House, were at hand, and spread over the slop-pails and other
unsightly things, and in a time incredibly short, as men move in
vulgar days, a goodly red carpet was spread along the gangway, and
thence down my lecture-room to the door of the Museum. But still
there was a dreadful evil to encounter. What we had done, brought
out such "a rank compound of villanous smells", that even my
plebeian nose was sorely put to it. How then could Queens and
Princes bear it? So I went to a chemist's shop, and procured
certain bottles of sweet odours, and sprinkled them cunningly where
most wanted. And art being now exhausted, the rest was left to
nature. Inside the Museum all was previously in order. Inside
the entrance-door from the gangway was a huge picture of the
Megatherium, under which the Queen must pass to the Museum, and
at that place I was to receive Her Majesty. So I dusted my outer
garments, and ran to the Senate House. And I was just in time to
see the Prince take his degree, and to join in the acclamations. That
ended, I ran back to the feet of the Megatherium ; and before long,
the Queen left the Senate House, and began her progress. Where
carpets were wanting, the gowns of the undergraduates supplied their
place, and, in a few minutes, the Royal Party entered the mysterious
gangway above described. They halted, I half thought in the
spirit of mischief, to contemplate the furniture of the Schools, and
the Vice-Chancellor (Whewell) pointed out the beauties of the dirty
spot, where Queen Bess had sat 250 years before when she presided
at the Divinity Act 1 . A few steps more brought them under the feet
of the Megatherium, which rose in the air spontaneously and allowed
the Queen and Prince Albert to pass under, followed by the attend-
ants and leading persons of the University. I bowed as low as my
anatomy would let me, and the Queen and Prince bowed again most
graciously; and so began Act I. The Queen seemed happy and
well-pleased, and was mightily taken with one or two of my monsters,
especially with the Plesiosaurus and gigantic stag. The subject was
new to her, but the Prince evidently had a good general knowledge
of the old world ; and not only asked good questions, and listened
with great courtesy to all I had to say, but in one or two instances
helped me out by pointing to the rare things in my collection,
1 This is a mistake. When Queen Elizabeth visited the University in 1564
the Disputations in Divinity were held in Great St Mary's Church. Cooper's
Annals, ii. 194.
THE QUEEN AT CAMBRIDGE. 63
especially in that part of it which contains the German fossils. I
thought myself very fortunate in being able to exhibit the finest
collection of German fossils to be seen in England. They fairly
went round the Museum, and had they not been so greatly pressed
for time, would, I believe, most willingly have remained much longer ;
for neither of them seemed in a hurry, and I think the Queen was
quite happy to hear her husband talk about a novel subject with so
much knowledge and spirit. He called her back once to look at a
fine impression of a dragon-fly which I have in the Solenhofen slate.
Having glanced at the long succession of our fossils from the youngest
to the oldest, the party again moved into the lecture-room. The
Queen was again mightily taken with the long neck of the Plesiosau-
rus. Under it was a fine head of an Icthyosaunis, which I had been
just unpacking. I did not know anything about it, as I had myself
never seen its face before, for it arrived in my absence. The Queen
asked what it was. I told her as plainly as I could. She then asked
whence it came, and what do you think I said? That I did not
know the exact place, but I believed it came as a delegate from the
monsters of the lower world to greet Her Majesty on her arrival at
the University. I did not repeat this, till I found that I had been
overheard, and that my impertinence had been talked of among my
Cambridge friends. All was, however, taken in good part, and soon
afterwards the Royal Party again approached the mysterious gangway.
I bowed low, the Prince and Queen bowed, the Megatherium packed
up his legs close under the abdominal regions of his august body, the
Royal Pageant passed under, and was soon out of my sight, and
welcomed by the cheers of the multitudes before the Library. You
now know all I can tell you about this part of the Royal Visit, and I
will add that I went through every kind of backward movement to
the admiration of all beholders, only having once trodden on the
hinder part of my cassock, and never once having fallen during
my retrogradations before the face of the Queen. In short had
I been a King Crab I could not have walked backwards much
better....
When I reached Cambridge from the North, I immediately called
on the Master, and offered him the use of my room that opens on
the turret stair-case, and so communicates directly with the State
Apartments of the Lodge. He accepted my offer with joy, and next
morning early, I saw a bed put up in this room for the Lord
Chamberlain, after which the door of communication was closed on
the side leading to my other rooms. Had I known what took place
afterwards I should certainly have taken a peep through the key
hole. But I remained in ignorance of the honour my dining-room
had come to, and only heard the news after the Queen's departure.
No sooner had Her Majesty arrived than all the attendant ladies were
shewn to their respective quarters. The two who were to dress the
Queen, and take care of the royal wardrobe, cried out against the
destined apartment, as infinitely too small to contain them and a
tithe only of the Queen's petticoats. Necessity has no law, so Monsieur
64 THE QUEEN AT CAMBRIDGE.
1843. le Grand Chambellan was bundled out head and shoulders, and the
/Et. 58. tw ladies prepared all the decorations for the royal person in my
dining-room. My walls, floor, chairs, and tables were covered with
the gorgeous and costly trappings of royalty. When I again entered
my dining-room last Friday week the very pictures on the walls were
still nodding with astonishment, and even the old grave-looking
Turkey carpet was in a state of most unusual excitement. I could
not tell what was the matter with all my furniture, but I called on
Mrs Whewell, and she soon explained this wonder.
Here I ought to end my private history. Every thing has now
returned to its old place, and things in general have taken to their
former courses. I am sitting in solitude, among ill -arranged papers,
sometimes listening to the clock, at other times turning my ear to
the melancholy murmuring of my dirty tea kettle.
The next letter completes our account of the year 1843.
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
NORWICH, January 6th, 1844.
My dear Kate,
As soon as the sun rises (for I am now writing by
very early candle-light) will begin the last day of Christmas
a day of merry faces, clapping hands, and twelfth cakes,
and I know not what besides but these things are to me
almost matters of memory ; for I have been a bad economist
of my happiness I am withering on the ground without
fruit or blossom ; and am not permitted to live over again
in the joys of the young who are near and dear to me. I
must not, however, grumble above measure; for am I not
beginning the day (while the sun has still two hours of hard
work in trailing his limbs through the mists of morning
before he can get his head above the dead level of Norfolk)
in writing to a kind young friend who has sent me a large
packet of good wishes, and has told me that she is willing to
bear with me ?
The last time I wrote to you was, if I remember right,
very soon after the Queen's visit. The remaining part of the
term, till I came hither at the end of November, was taken
up in writing two geological papers for the London Society.
At that time, I was in bad spirits, and not in good health.
DEATH OF CHARLES INGLE. 65
The horrid death of an old and dear friend of mine 1 gave me 1844.
such a shake, that I did not recover from it till two or three -^ 59-
weeks after I came to this place. While I was in Cambridge
his image was, almost day and night, before my eyes. He
was a man of great reading and extraordinary conversational
powers ; the delight (and perhaps alas ! the victim) of society.
He had a tender conscience, and was not satisfied with the
retrospect of his own daily life, and at times he was liable to
fits of terrific melancholy. I have seen him, often, in a state
when he appeared not responsible for his actions. And then,
all at once, his soul would emerge from the dark and dismal
vapour that surrounded it, and he would blaze out in such a
way that it required all one's nerves to endure his vivacity.
I had known him more than thirty years. He was in the
lowest sink of mental misery when I saw him at Cambridge,
during the great festivity. He laid bare his whole heart to
me. He had formed an attachment not a prudent one as
the world counts prudence ; and I urged him to marry
believing in my heart that in so doing his mind and happiness
might be saved. He went and acted on my advice ; and then
alas ! sunk again into blank despair, and took away his own
life. The wretchedness I felt for some weeks, ended in a
fit of rheumatic gout but, thank God, I am now nearly well
or rather I ought to say, I am quite well.
My life is very uniform I rise early (often between five
and six) and do all my work in the mornings, often before
anyone is stirring. You see by this, that I consider my
letters to you as a part of my hard work ! So you must make
up your mind to read them over twice ; otherwise you will
1 The Rev. Charles Ingle. His death took place 13 November, 1843. Mr
Romilly, who had known him through Sedgwick, notes in \ns,' Diary: "I have
always considered poor Ingle as a most unfortunate and a most ill-used man.
With talents of the highest order, with a mind stored with all the treasures of
literature, with a most retentive memory, and wit only second to Sidney Smith's,
he was the delight of society. The Archbishop of York and all the nobility of
the neighbourhood vied with each other in making their houses attractive by
having Ingle for their guest but they suffered him to languish in poverty upon a
miserable living of about ^"150 a year."
S. II. 5
66 LIFE AT NORWICH.
i8 44 . miss half their meaning. There is a great deal of mystical
& 59- and symbolical meaning in my crooked characters you will
overlook at first sight ; and after making all this out you will
begin to think my ugly, crooked-looking, letters quite charm-
ing. But of that by the way. At nine I meet my servants
quarter past, breakfast at ten, morning service at the
Cathedral after service, odds and ends callings and shop-
pings and I know not what lunch at one then a scamper on
horse-back (when I have time) with my niece, who loves a
horse as much as you used to do and she now rides a lovely
bay thoroughbred creature I have hired for her. So you see,
among other temptations for next Residence, I can promise
you a glorious movement over our Norfolk sands on the back
of a charger. But to return to my. journal. Cathedral service
again at four dinner at six : but our hours are very irregular,
and we make Old Time our slave on this point somewhat
to the confusion of my old house-keeper, who has so long
been the slave of Old Time, that she has learnt to like his
fetters better than our freedom. We are rather given to
dining out ; and have many kind friends who would be greatly
built up by seeing the Warfield 1 party.
A few days since I had a good Christmas party of children
blindman's buff and Hyde Hall romps over again ; and a
good smattering of grown-up children, who thought them-
selves young again during the sparkling of fireworks and the
boisterous mirth of snap-dragon. We will try a measure of
this kind when you come. There ! my servant is stirring,
and my man has brought me in my little white German dog.
I offered you her brother, and you would not have him. If
you only could see his beautiful sister now at my feet, you
would sorely repent your refusal of my offer; but an old
bachelor of my age has had his offers refused so often that he
gets used to it, and bears it like a lump of frozen starch, and
is none the worse for it. On Thursday evening I gave a two
hours' lecture to the Society of Naturalists at this City. I
1 An estate in Berkshire, bought by Sir John Malcolm in 1831.
LECTURES AT NORWICH. 67
think I had a class of nearly 300, and more than half the i8 44 .
number were of the softer sex at least they wore the outer ^ Et 59-
symbols of womankind but whether their stockings were
blue I know not from ocular proof. I think I have heard it
said that a good woman might have her stockings as blue as
you like, only she ought to have petticoats long enough to
cover them. There are, however, one or two dragonesses
of blues here who mightily affect shorts. I don't know with
which set I must pack you, when you come to see me. The
second set will I think suit you to a /. My niece responds to
all your kind wishes, and longs for the promised visit of my
Warfield friends. But I must now conclude. So a thousand
kind wishes to you all. Ever, my dear Kate, affectionately
yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
52
CHAPTER II.
18441849.
INVITATION TO BRITISH ASSOCIATION. MEETING AT YORK.
CONTROVERSY WITH DEAN COCKBURN (1844). ARTICLE IN
EDINBURGH REVIEW. BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT CAMBRIDGE.
ELECTED VICE-MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE. GEOLOGY IN
LAKE LAND. QUARREL WITH DR WHEWELL (1845).
GEOLOGY IN N. WALES (1846). LONG ILLNESS. PRINCE
ALBERT ELECTED CHANCELLOR. SEDGWICK APPOINTED HIS
SECRETARY. SIR HARRY SMITH AT WHITTLESEA. INSTALLA-
TION OF THE PRINCE. VISIT TO OSBORNE (1847). GEOLOGY
IN SCOTLAND. LECTURE AT IPSWICH (1848). JENNY LIND.
TRIAL OF RUSH. ACCIDENT. BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT
BIRMINGHAM. DEATH OF BISHOP STANLEY. BREAKS RIGHT
ARM (1849).
THE year 1844 was barely two months old when Sedgwick
heard of the death of one of his most intimate Cambridge
o
friends, Mr D. F. Gregory. He was introduced to him at
Edinburgh in I834 1 , when staying with Dr Alison, who had
married one of his sisters. A close intimacy with the Alisons,
and a frequent correspondence, resulted from that accidental
meeting. "The happy week I spent with you," he wrote
to Mrs Alison in 1844, "the way you made me one of
1 See above, Vol. i. p. 431.
DEATH OF D. F. GREGORY. 69
yourselves the charming visit to the old patriarch at Wood- i8 44 .
ville 1 all these things are treasured in my memory, and bring ^ 59-
delightful recollections." At that time Gregory was a clever
undergraduate he had entered Trinity College in 1833 fond
of natural science, and with a special aptitude for mathematics.
He was fifth wrangler in 1837 a place which, high as it was,
was considered to be inferior to what he might have attained
to, had his reading been less discursive; and in 1840 he was
elected Fellow of Trinity College. He was a man of varied
accomplishments, and great social gifts, which made him a
welcome guest, not merely in Sedgwick's rooms, but in the
general society of Cambridge. But his health, which had
never been robust, gave way in 1842, and during the next two
years he gradually faded out of life. The end came rather
suddenly in February 1844. Sedgwick's letters to him and
there is evidence that he wrote frequently have not been
preserved ; and it is only from allusions in his correspondence
with others, and from Mrs Alison's letters, that we get glimpses
of what was evidently a very real friendship. " I trust you
believe," she writes, " that, as a part of Duncan's happy life at
Cambridge, the feeling that he had your friendship was one
of the things he prized most of all. I dared not attempt
telling you (nor can I easily trust myself to write it) the sort
of way in which he used to speak of you often, when feeling
relieved from suffering he used to lie recalling and describing
to us all that had given him pleasure in his College life. He
not only admired, he loved you ; and was very grateful
(though not a person of many words), for your kindness to
him. So are we all now 2 ." Mr Gregory had always hoped
A villa near Colinton, four miles from Edinburgh, at the foot of the Pentland
hills, bought by the two sons of the Rev. Archibald Alison, as a residence for their
parents. Mr Alison, author of The Principles of 7"aste, and other works, died
there, 17 May, 1839, set. 82. Autobiography of Sir A. Alison, 2 vols. 8vo. Edinb.
1883, i. 291.
2 From Mrs Alison, 1844. A short Memoir of Mr Gregory, by Robert
Leslie Ellis, is prefixed to The Mathematical Writings of Duncan Farquharson
Gregory, M.A. Edited by William Walton, M.A. 8vo. Camb. 1865.
70 BRITISH ASSOCIATION INVITED TO CAMBRIDGE.
1844. to persuade his friend to sit for his portrait ; and the
Et * 59 * details of the plan had been discussed between them in
the June before he died. After his death Mrs Alison re-
minded Sedgwick of his promise ; and to please her his
portrait was drawn in crayons by Mr Samuel Lawrence.
On returning to Cambridge at the conclusion of his
Norwich Residence a question concerning the British As-
sociation claimed Sedgwick's attention. The Council, in
making arrangements for the annual meetings, had come
to the conclusion that the towns most convenient for the
purposes of the Association had been already visited, and
that the time had come when it was desirable to revisit
them, as nearly as possible in the original order. York had
been chosen for the meeting of 1844 5 it remained to be seen
whether Cambridge would be available for 1845, it being
understood that Oxford was unwilling. This proposal en-
countered strong opposition from Whewell. Sedgwick and
Murchison both did all in their power to conciliate him, but
in vain 1 . The following letters will explain what happened,
without further introduction :
To Sir J. F. W. HerscheL
LONDON, May i2//z, 1844.
My dear Herschel,
I promised some of my friends to write to you
last Wednesday ; but I was labouring under a fit of gout,
which burrows among my nerves and makes me unfit for
every duty of life. So I procrastinated and waited for a
reprieve. I am now rather better; and hope I have sense
enough left to make myself understood. Some weeks
since we had, at Cambridge, a meeting to ascertain the
feeling of the University on the question of receiving the
British Association in 1845. I spoke on the occasion said
that the body had not yet run its course that it was
in full vitality that it would be an honour to Cambridge
1 Geikie's Life of Afurchison, ii. pp. 11 25.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION INVITED TO CAMBRIDGE. 71
to receive it again and that I trusted you might be induced i8 44 .
to take the office of Commander-in-Chief, &c. &c. The &* 59-
meeting went off well. The present Vice-Chancellor 1 , and the
Vice-Chancellor for next year 2 (1845), were both favourable,
and the Master of Christ's 3 attended, and is willing to take
any office in which he can be of use. Two hands only (out
of 60 or 70 present) were held up on the negative side 4 . Our
Master (Whewell) spoke against the meeting, but bolted, and
did not vote. I was advised not to write to you then; but to
wait till the Grace of the Senate (granting the use of our
public buildings to the Association) had passed. You know
the constitution of our Caput, and that any one veto from that
body would have been fatal, even though every other Member
of the Senate had been favourable. But the Grace passed on
Wednesday last: 24 or 25 placets , and four non-placets in the
Upper House ; in the Lower House no division. The glorious
minority of four was composed of three Tutors of Trin. Coll. 5
and one old paralytic man who is frighted to death at the
idea of a crowd. Whewell did not vote, and I doubt not he
will in the end join us, and heartily, after having discharged
the electrical accumulation from the negative pole. The
time of meeting cannot be absolutely fixed till we meet at
York ; but by universal consent the month of June, I mean
the latter part of it just before the Commencement, will be
fixed on. Indeed no other time would suit us at Cambridge.
To meet in term-time would be very inexpedient if not im-
possible ; and after the Commencement I do not think you
could induce our active men again to muster, after they had
left College, and made their arrangements for the summer.
Sometime before the Grace was proposed we had heard,
1 William Hodgson, D.D., Master of Peterhouse.
2 Robert Phelps, D.D., Master of Sidney Sussex College.
3 John Graham, D.D., Master of Christ's College 183049; Bishop of
Chester, 1848.
4 Mr Romilly records that the Rev. J. W. Blakesley, Fellow and Tutor of
Trinity College, was the only person who voted on the negative side.
5 For this act of subservience to the Master (as some regarded it) they were
nicknamed " the three stars in the tail of the Great Bear."
72 BRITISH ASSOCIATION INVITED TO CAMBRIDGE.
1844. through Murchison, that you had consented to be our Chief-
t. 59- tain. This gave us new strength and spirits, and neutralized
any chance of opposition from St John's. For they love you
so well, and glory so much in your honours, that they would
never think of opposing any philosophic movement of which
you formed the President. So the matter stands. Let me
have one single line from you I shall be here all this week.
Don't think the chair of state unworthy of you because I
once sat on it. The young Society was then only crawling
on all fours, and naturally clung to the earth. And, if an
argillaceous impress was left by me on the bottom of the
seat, surely twelve years must have dried it, and left time
for roses and other sweet-smelling things to grow out of it.
So you will have a throne of blossoms sending the sweetest
odours to the sky. But the Society is now well-grown and
vigorous. You will teach it to turn its face upwards and kiss
the sky ; and to rise on the wings of imagination far beyond
even those star-clouds you watched so long from the other
side of old mother earth's hooped petticoat. One good thing
we shall have the pleasure of seeing you, and I trust Lady
Herschel and some of your asteroids, for a week amongst
us. You will rub off some of our academic rust ; and we shall
profit a thousand ways, both in head and heart, by the grand
reunion. How is your great work coming on ? Is it soon to
see the light ? I was at Greenwich the other day, and saw
fourteen calculators working at the arrears of the Observa-
tory reductions ! In another year Airy hopes to finish this
enormous task. But you know all this a thousand times
better than I can tell you. It is well that you, and Airy, and
your brother craftsmen are held to the earth by silken cords,
twined by the hands of your wives and children. But for this
you would long since have risen sky-high by mental energy,
and been dissipated by internal elasticity into expanded
masses of luminous vapour. Here I must stop ; for were my
legs even as long as those of St Christopher, I could not see
clearly, or write sensibly, about things so far above the earth.
HERSCHEL CONSENTS TO BE PRESIDENT. 73
Give my kind regards to Lady Herschel, and my love to 1844.
your children. Ever, my dear Herschel, with most sincere &*-. 59.
and cordial (though alas ! but ignorant) admiration of your
vast labours,
Most truly yours
A. SEDGWICK.
From Sir J. F. W. Herschel.
COLLINGWOOD, 15 May, 1844.
My dear Sedgwick,
Many thanks for your very friendly and encouraging letter
but I grieve to hear that you are such a sufferer in the flesh. Is it
for this that hammer in hand, like a second Thor, you have gone
about the world cracking the crowns of rebellious mountains, and
reducing the very stocks and stones to order and obedience? I
thought gout was for those who wore soft raiment, and pressed
down-beds, and fared sumptuously daily, not for hard-working tough-
fisted brawny fellows like you Geologists, who live on three feeds of
flints a day, tempered with quantum sufficit of the Chaotic fluid, and
who ignore all turtle but what they find potted up in antediluvian
mud. However, be that as it may, if your lot be hard beyond that
of all others of your craft, you are so much the more to be compas-
sionated, and apart from all joking I am very sorry to hear that you
are subject to the attacks of so dreadful an enemy.
I only hope I may make a quarter so efficient a chairman of
the British Association. Indeed I am afraid I shall get on very
indifferently. Whewell's opposition to the meeting seems after all to
have been not a very relentless one. Liberavit animum suum that
was all and standing in an influential position on two opposite sides
of the question (as a man does when he straddles across a ditch that
separates two counties) his two halves instead of neutralising one
another seem to have resolved on separate and independent activity.
So, having opposed the meeting in the first instance in virtue of his
membership of the Association judging according to his own
notions what was best for it he will I presume as Master of Trinity
give it a good shove forward when it comes to Cambridge. All I
know is that I have a very cordial invitation from him to make
Trinity Lodge my head-quarters during the meeting, which does not
look like repudiation.
For my own part, if it be the wish of the Council of the Associa-
tion that I should take the chair, I shall hold myself prepared to do
my best ; and as I know what very efficient supporters I shall have
in yourself and Peacock (and I am quite sure Whewell too) etc. to
say nothing of non-cantabs, I have little fear we shall have a good
meeting.
Believe me, dear Sedgwick,
Yours very sincerely,
J. W. HERSCHEL.
74 BRITISH ASSOCIATION INVITED TO CAMBRIDGE.
1844. It was notorious in the University, that what Sedgwick
t- 59- called "a wrestling match" between himself and the Master
of Trinity, was about to take place ; and the prospect of such
a diversion attracted a large audience to the Woodwardian
lecture-room on Tuesday, 26 March. The chair was taken by
the Dean of Ely 1 , as President-elect of the Association. Mr
Hopkins 2 proposed, in a temperate and well-considered speech,
that in case the British Association should decide to meet at
Cambridge in 1845, a friendly reception should be given to it.
This was seconded by Professor Gumming. Then Whewell rose.
So far as the meagre report in The Cambridge Chronicle enables
us to understand his drift, he took the view that the Association
ought to disseminate light through the darkness of provincial
England ; that there were numerous large towns as yet un-
visited ; that if it visited the same towns in a perpetually
recurring cycle it would become "an object of terror" on the
ground of expense ; and, finally, that it was a dangerous
experiment to attempt to revive after so short an interval the
enthusiasm which had distinguished Cambridge in 1833.
Sedgwick's reply to these cautious sentiments is said to
have been most spirited and amusing ; but, unfortunately, only
fragments of it have survived. He opened fire with a direct
attack, in some such words as these : " If the Master of Trinity
will not lend us his active cooperation and sympathy, let him
at least not oppose the generous wishes of the University let
him go home and shut himself up in his Lodge and receive
none of those whom it ought to be an honour and a pleasure
to entertain :" and then, suddenly, feeling that he had gone
rather too far, he stopped, and added : " But, while I am thus
strongly expressing my views upon the point before us, I
should scorn the man who would insinuate that any difference
of opinion upon a question like this could interrupt the life-
long friendship that has subsisted between the Master and
myself. " Then he went through the reasons which influenced
1 The Rev. G. Peacock, D.D., had been appointed Dean of Ely in 1839.
- William Hopkins, M.A. Peterhouse, the well-known mathematical tutor.
SEDGWICK'S SPEECH. 75
the Council of the Association in choosing Cambridge for their l8 44-
place of meeting in 1845 ; that the most suitable places had l ' 59 '
been visited already ; that there was some valid objection to
every one of the towns suggested by Dr Whewell ; that
therefore the former places of meeting must now be revisited
unless the Association cease to meet, or be so altered as to
lose its original character. "If Cambridge, coldhearted and
cowardly, decline to receive the Association, and if other
towns of the original cycle, following this example, should also
refuse, then the Association dies ; but I should indeed feel
a chill at heart if I thought that the torch of science which
has burnt so brightly, and which has been passed from hand
to hand, warming and illuminating us, should only be handed
on when by us its light has been extinguished.... This question
you are now called on to decide, namely, whether you will
put your extinguisher on the zeal of those men amongst
you who are willing to assist in what they firmly believe to
be a great public good, and prevent them from exerting
themselves for the benefit of science. This is the point
of the whole matter ; this, I repeat, is the question which now
awaits your decision." Having disposed of this side of the
subject, he adopted and supported with equal eloquence the
opposite view. "If we refused to receive it, did we think
that the British Association would suffer from such treatment?
No ! our conduct would recoil upon ourselves. We should
be disgraced in the judgements of all right-judging persons,
while the Association would soar &c., &c." His arguments
might have been illogical, but the show of hands at the end
shewed that he had understood his audience. "My reply," he
wrote to Murchison, "followed Whewell step by step, and
argument by argument ; and I do think, judging by the votes,
that I had the best of it. I did not flinch a point, kept my
temper, and had several good hearty laughs out of the
audience, so that even our Master relaxed and laughed among
the rest, and left the room in apparent good temper V
1 This account has been derived from The Cambridge Chronicle, 30 March,
76 PAPER BY THE DEAN OF YORK.
1844. At the end of May Sedgwick, accompanied by his niece
* 59- Isabella and her brother, left England for Germany, to try
what effect the waters of Wisbaden would have on his gout.
The cure ended, he took a short tour in the Black Forest,
and did not reach home until the middle of September, when
it was time to attend the meeting of the British Association
at York. He had no paper to read ; his duties as Vice-
President of the Geological Section were almost nominal ;
and he probably looked forward to an agreeable holiday in
the society of Professor Phillips, Archbishop Harcourt, and
other friends. As events turned out, he was called upon to
occupy a position of unexpected prominence.
The Very Reverend William Cockburn, D.D. was at that
time Dean of York. He was a Cambridge man of some dis-
tinction, having been twelfth wrangler in 1795, Fellow of St
John's College, and Christian Advocate from 1803 to 1810.
It might therefore have been expected that his Cambridge
training would have taught him at least the rudiments of
scientific methods ; and that he would not have propounded
crude theories upon a subject in which he was a mere
beginner. For some years, however, he had become pos-
sessed with the notion that the cause of biblical truth was
being emperilled by the theories of geologists in general, and
of Dr Buckland in particular; and in 1838 he had testified
against the Association by warning the Duke of Northumber-
land, then President, against what he called, The Dangers of
Peripatetic Philosophy^. The York meeting therefore was a
golden opportunity. Under the shadow of his own Cathedral
he would confute his special opponent, and in his person
discredit the whole body of assembled philosophers. He
obtained leave to read in the Geological Section a paper
entitled : Critical Remarks on certain Passages in Dr Buck-
1844 ; Mr Romilly's Diary ; and the article Adam Sedgwick by the Lord Bishop
of Carlisle, in Macmillan's Magazine for April, 1880.
1 In this year he published : A Letter to Professor Buckland, concerning the
Origin of the World, 8vo. Lond. ; and A Remonstrance, addressed to his Grace the
Duke of Northumberland, ttpon the Dangers of Peripatetic Philosophy. 8vo. Lond.
SEDGWICK^S REPLY. 77
land's Bridgewater Treatise. A writer in Chambers's Edin- 1844.
burgh Journal has left a description of the scene : Mt - 59-
The whimsicality of the attempt would have caused the Section
to reject such a paper from any man of inferior note ; but the local
importance of its author, and dread of being accused of fear to meet
such an opponent, determined them to give it a hearing. When
this was known on the morning of Friday, a vast multitude flocked
to the section, and thus gave additional importance to what was at
best a kind of indecent oddity in the course of the proceedings. In
due time the Dean, a tall and venerable figure, with an air of
imperturbable composure, walked through the crowd, and took his
place by invitation beside the President on the platform. His
paper, which he read with a firm voice, was briefly and elegantly
expressed, but otherwise was a most extraordinary production. To
the mind of the writer, the whole of those collections of facts and
illustrations which the geologists have made during forty years,
seemed to have existed in vain. He first presented a set of
objections against the view of the earth's early history given by Dr
Buckland in his Bridgewater Treatise; and then proceeded to de-
velop a theory of his own, accounting for all the phenomena in a
manner designed to reduce them within a very brief space of time.
The theory was a wilder dream than any of Burnet's or Woodward's,
and such as could not be listened to with gravity by any one ac-
quainted with the science ; yet, amidst the laughter which hailed it,
the author went on in an unfaltering manner to the end, when he
quietly sat down beside Mr Warburton. 2
The Dean attempted to explain the Mosaic cosmogony
literally. Marine volcanoes, he thought, together with the
supernatural rain of the Flood, had deposited all the strata, as
we see them now, in the course of a few days ; and the
embedded fossils represent the remains of animals that were
all alive when the convulsion began, and were so obliging as
to die in the definite and regular order in which their shells
and bones are now deposited.
The task of replying to this attack was confided to
Sedgwick, who, the same writer tells us, " enchained the
audience for an hour and a half, alternately charming them
by his vast learning, and throwing them off their gravity by
the most amusing and grotesque illustrations." He began by
pointing out at some length that the proper business of the
1 Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, New Series, ii. 322.
- Harry Warburton, M.P., F.R.S. President of the Geological Section.
78 REPLY TO THE DEAN OF YORK.
1844. Association was to collect facts, not to propound theories, and
t- 59- that such a discussion as the present would never, he hoped,
be permitted again. Then he was at pains to follow the
Dean through his " irrational guesses and absurd hypotheses,"
as though he were dealing with an opponent worthy of his
steel. His speech, as reported in The Athenczum, is severe;
but we have been told by one who was present that as
delivered it was remarkable for a scornful bitterness beyond
the power of any reporter to reproduce.
A castigation so thorough would have reduced most ant-
agonists to silence. Not so Dean Cockburn. He demanded a
second discussion ; and, when this was refused, he published
his paper with a new title : The Bible defended against the
British Association. Moreover for some time he continued to
harass Sedgwick with long letters, in which he not only
questioned him on particular points, but entreated him to
formulate a precise theory of creation. These letters the
Dean published as soon as they were written ; but Sedgwick
wisely declined to allow him to pursue a similar course with
his answers.
At the present time even the most devout and the most
orthodox have abandoned those unprofitable attempts to
give a literal interpretation to the figurative language of
Scripture which were indulged in fifty years ago. Hence it
is almost impossible to realise the alarm excited by the
earlier results of geological research ; and the hysterical
denunciations of science and its professors which were then
so common can hardly be read without a smile. Ignorant
and foolish as Dean Cockburn was, it is easy to see, from the
number of editions of his pamphlet published in the course
of a few weeks, 1 that he represented the feelings of a large
majority of his countrymen. At the meeting of the British
Association Sedgwick wisely contented himself with saying
1 A fifth edition of The Bible defended etc. was published in 1845. To this
was appended " a correspondence between the Dean and some members of the
Association," including the first two letters to Sedgwick.
MOSAIC COSMOGONY. 79
that " truth could not be opposed to itself, and that the i8 44 .
highest discoveries of science would ever be found in perfect &* 59-
harmony and accordance with the language and meaning of
revelation ;" but it will be interesting to know what his views
on the difficult subject of the Mosaic cosmogony really were.
Soon afterwards he wrote a long letter to a friend, who felt
doubts and difficulties, from which some passages may be
extracted.
" The two first verses [of the first chapter of Genesis],
are an exordium, declaring God the Creator of all material
things; and I believe it means, out of nothing, at a period
so immeasurably removed from man as to be utterly out
of the reach of his conception. After the first verse there
is a pause of vast and unknown length, and here I would
place the periods of our old geological formations, not re-
vealed because out of the scope of revelation. We are then
told that 'the earth was without form and void, and dark-
ness was upon the face of the deep.' Who can dare to say
that he comprehends these short and mysterious words ?
They may perhaps describe the condition of the earth
after one of the many catastrophes by which its former
structure had been broken up, and of which we can, on its
present surface, find so many traces. But these are specula-
tions. I value them not, for they are, perhaps, worse than
nothing. After the word 'deep* there is a pause. The work
of actual present creation now begins. The spirit of God
broods over the dead matter of the world, and in six figurative
days brings it into its perfect fashion, and fills it with living
beings.
" Why may He not have manifested His power while His
spirit moved on the waters in ten thousand creative acts
never revealed (because unconnected with the moral destinies
of man), yet recorded in clear characters on stony tablets to
be read and admired in after-times by the descendants of the
last created being, to whom faculties were given whereby they
might comprehend the laws of the material world, and rise
8o HIS SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY.
1845. from them to some faint, glimmering perception of their
Et. 60. Creator's glory ?"
In November of this year Sedgwick gave a lecture at Ely
on the geological phenomena displayed in the cuttings for
the Great Eastern Railway. This was succeeded by the
usual winter residence at Norwich.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, March ist, 1845.
How time seems to fly ! Two months of the new year
gone, and in three weeks more I shall complete my sixtieth
year ! I ought, day and night, to thank God for the blessings
I enjoy, and have enjoyed, not indeed uniform and uninter-
rupted, but chequered with some pain and sickness and such
afflictions as must sometimes meet us on the way if we are
permitted to live to sixty within ten years, you know, of the
scripture limit of human life. My domestic griefs have, in
comparison of what are often laid on my neighbours, been
few indeed, and slight ; and none of them, thank God,
without the comfort and consolation of Christian hope. Oh !
that I could learn a lesson of patience during the long
lingering attacks of rheumatic gout which fasten on me every
spring ! This most worrying malady is already working
among my extremities, and undermining my spirits and
temper. A bad cold I had at Norwich will not quit its hold,
and I move out with my face muffled in a respirator. I
lecture six days a week in a voice which would sound
charmingly in a frog-chorus. Spite of these little ills I am
stronger, both in mind and body, than most men of my age,
and indeed I ought to be thankful !...
I have now. given up all thoughts of marriage ; and it is
high time, is it not ? But, do you know, it is a very hard
thing for a man to give up, even at my own time of life....
At the beginning of the Easter vacation Sedgwick read
to the Geological Society a paper, On the comparative classifi-
cation of the Fossiliferoiis Strata of North Wales with the
THE VESTIGES. 81
corresponding deposits of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and 1845.
Lancashire, the object of which was to bring the successive ^ 6a
groups of the Cumbrian mountains into comparison with
the three primary divisions of the whole Welsh series, as
laid down in his paper read to the Society in November,
1843-
We have now reached one of the most noteworthy of
Sedgwick's works his criticism of the once famous Vestiges
of the Natural History of Creation. At the present day, if
the book be not entirely forgotten, it is alluded to with
languid interest as in some sort a precursor of The Origin of
Species; but when it first appeared, in the autumn of 1844, it
caused a prodigious sensation, and achieved a popularity
which to us is almost incomprehensible. It must be re-
membered, however, that scientific treatises adapted to non-
scientific readers were at that time almost unknown, and
the Vestiges, with its agreeable style and reverential tone,
was probably regarded by many as a pious compendium of
all that had been most recently ascertained respecting the
world and its inhabitants. Moreover it was published
anonymously, so that interest was enhanced by curiosity.
The wildest suggestions were indulged in ; even the sex
of the writer was disputed ; and Sedgwick, as we shall see
presently, was for a time convinced that he had to deal
with a lady. It is now known that the author was Mr
Robert Chambers 1 .
His avowed object was to supersede the received concep-
tion of creation as a series of special and arbitrary acts by a
theory which should establish for the production of organic
life some such law as had been already established for the
celestial bodies. A review of the several geological formations
indicated a gradual progress ; speaking generally, lower forms
1 An interesting account of the way in which the Vestiges came to be
written, the number of editions, etc. is to be found in the Preface to the i2th
edition, 1884, by Mr Alex. Ireland, one of the four original depositaries of
the secret.
s. ii. 6
82 THE VESTIGES.
1845. had preceded higher. Further, it was argued, an obvious
JEt. 60. gradation may be observed among existing forms of animal
life, and, at the same time, an obvious unity of structure ; in
other words, all animated things are parts of one system, the
creation of which must have depended upon one law or
decree of the Almighty. From these considerations it was
but a step to the hypothesis "that the simplest and most
primitive type gave birth to the type next above it, that
this again produced the next higher, and so on to the very
highest, the stages in advance being in all cases very small,
namely, from one species only to another." To fortify this
conception the author ranged " from heaven to earth and
earth to heaven;" the nebular hypothesis, the law of gravita-
tion, electricity, chemistry, botany, metaphysics, language,
phrenology, psychology, zoology and its classificatory sys-
tems, embryology, physiology, comparative anatomy, were
all laid under contribution, and made to supply facts or
analogies. The explorer of a field so vast if he was to
effect a result of any permanent value should have been
endowed with a mind trained by scientific research. Mr
Chambers, on the contrary, was a man of letters, whose
attention had been accidentally directed to a scientific problem.
As might have been expected, he made grievous, not to say
ridiculous, mistakes ; and though the general public bought,
read, and applauded, the essay was unanimously condemned
by men of science, and held up to scorn and ridicule in the
best critical journals.
The tone of Sedgwick's mind was eminently teleological,
as his Discourse on the Studies of the University has shewn.
Any theory calculated to weaken the argument from design
was certain to rouse his indignation ; and the mistakes which
disfigured the Vestiges were not likely to soften him in the
author's favour. Had the book, however, been ten times as
ignorant and inaccurate as it was, it would still be im-
possible to defend the spirit in which he thought and wrote
about it.
SEDGWICK^S INDIGNATION. 83
To Charles Lyell, Esq. ^45.
CAMBRIDGE, April 9, 1845. ^t. 60.
...While in Residence at Norwich I had a note from
Macvey Napier 1 asking me for a Review of the Vestiges
of Creation. I dared not undertake the task ; as I had a
course of lectures in certain, and a fit of the gout in probable,
reversion. I am now truly sorry for my cowardice ; for the
gout has treated me with more than usual kindness, and my
lectures have been finished for three weeks. To write a good
Review one ought to know a little of the subject, and one
ought either heartily to love, or heartily to hate, the author's
sentiments. I do from my soul abhor the sentiments, and I
believe I could have crushed the book by proving it base,
vulgar in spirit, (not so in dress and manner, and there is the
mischief of it, but I would have strived to strip off the outer
covering and show its inner deformity and foulness,) false,
shallow, worthless, and, with the garb of philosophy, starting
from principles which are at variance with all sober inductive
truth. The sober facts of geology shuffled, so as to play a
rogue's game ; phrenology (that sinkhole of human folly and
prating coxcombry) ; spontaneous generation ; transmutation
of species; and I know not what; all to be swallowed, without
tasting or trying, like so much horse-physic ! ! Gross credulity
and rank infidelity joined in unlawful marriage, and breeding
a deformed progeny of unnatural conclusions !...What can we
think too ill of the silly philosophy of one who compares the
frosted vapour on our windows to the action of vegetable life?
or the electric brush to the organic energies which bring to
maturity a forest tree 2 ?...who breeds mites by electricity 3 , and
1 At that time editor of The Edinburgh Review.
2 Vestiges, Ed. iii. pp. 169 171.
3 The author of the Vestiges (p. 188) had cited, as an instance of the inter-
vention of man "in preparing the association of conditions under which the
creative laws work," the production of the Acarus crossii in the laboratory of Mr
Crosse (for whom see above, Vol. i. p. 461). It was believed for some time that
a new animal had been brought into being during the progress of a galvanic
experiment, but further investigation determined that it was- only a well-known
species, Acarus horridtis.
62
84 THE VESTIGES.
1845. hatches rats out of a goose's egg 1 ? And what shall we say
JEt. 60. t hi s intellectual capacities, when he confounds (as pheno-
mena of the same order) the glorious conclusions of abstract
language, and the inductions of pure intellect,... with the
jabbering of apes, and the cawing of rooks ? And what shall
we say to his morality and his conscience, when he tells us he
has 'destroyed all distinction between moral and physical 2 ;'
when he makes sin a mere organic misfortune 3 ?. ..If the book
be true, the labours of sober induction are in vain ; religion is
a lie ; human law is a mass of folly, and a base injustice ;
morality is moonshine; our labours for the black people of
Africa were works of madmen ; and man and woman are
only better beasts ! When I read some pages of the foul
book, it brought Swift's satire to my mind, and rilled me with
such inexpressible disgust that I threw [it] down... and cried
out to myself: 'Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
to sweeten my imagination.'
1 Having cited instances of "failure of the power of development," e.g. a
mammalian heart imperfectly organized, the author proceeds : " Here we have
apparently a realization of the converse of those conditions which carry on species
to species, so far, at least, as one organ is concerned.... How easy it is to suppose
an access of favourable conditions sufficient to reverse the phenomenon, and make
a fish mother develop a reptile heart, or a reptile mother develop a mammal one.
It is no great boldness to surmise that a super-adequacy in the measure of this
under-adequacy... would suffice in a goose to give its progeny the body of a rat,
and produce the ornithorhynchus, or might give the progeny of an ornithorhynchus
the mouth and feet of a true rodent, and thus complete at two stages the passage
from the aves to the mammalia " (p. 224).
2 Sedgwick does not state his adversary's argument fairly. The author is
arguing (p. 309) that the "ordinary mental manifestations" of man are "simple
phenomena resulting from organization, those of the lower animals being pheno-
mena absolutely the same in character, though developed within narrower
limits; " and further (p. 314), that as statistics exhibit a law in morals as well as
in physics, " Man is now seen to be an enigma only as an individual ; in the mass
he is a mathematical problem. It is hardly necessary to say, much less to argue,
that mental action, being proved to be under law, passes at once into the category
of natural things. Its old metaphysical character vanishes in a moment, and the
distinction usually taken between physical and moral is annulled."
3 " When order is generally triumphant, and reason allowed sway, men begin
to see the true case of criminals, namely, that while one large department are
victims of erroneous social conditions, another are brought to error by tendencies
which they are only unfortunate in having inherited from nature" (p. 341).
LETTER TO AGASSIZ. 85
" I cannot but think the work is from a woman's pen, it 1845.
is so well dressed, and so graceful in its externals. I do not ^t.-6
think the 'beast man' could have done this part so well.
Again, the reading, though extensive, is very shallow ; and
the author perpetually shoots ahead of his facts, and leaps to
a conclusion, as if the toilsome way up the hill of Truth were
to be passed over with the light skip of an opera-dancer.
This mistake was woman's from the first. She longed for
the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and she must pluck it, right
or wrong. In all that belongs to tact and feeling I would trust
her before a thousand breeches-wearing monkeys ; but petti-
coats are not fitted for the steps of a ladder. And 'tis only
by ladder-steps we are allowed to climb to the high platforms
of natural truth. Hence most women have by nature a
distaste for the dull realities of physical truth, and above all
for the labour-pains by which they are produced. When
they step beyond their own glorious province, where high
sentiment, kind feeling, moral judgments most pure and
true, and all the graces of imagination, flash from them like
heaven's light, they mar their nature (of course there are
some exceptions), and work mischief, or at best manufacture
compounds of inconsistency. The mesmeric dreamer, and
economist in petticoats, is, I think, no exception to this
*mark. But, my dear President, I beg your pardon for
iis nonsense. Did the author of the Vestiges see it, he, (or
she,) might perhaps think that I had been playing monkey-
tricks on the corner of my breakfast-table, and proving my
ipeish origin..."
To Professor Agassis.
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
April \oth 1845.
' The British Association is to meet here about the middle
of June, and I trust that the occasion will again bring you to
England, and give me the great happiness of entertaining you
in Trinity College. Indeed, I wish very much to see you ; for
many years have now elapsed since I last had that pleasure.
86 THE VESTIGES.
1845. May God long preserve your life, which has been spent in
JEt. 60. promoting the great ends of truth and knowledge ! Your
great work on fossil fishes is now before me, and I also
possess the first number of your monograph upon the fishes
of the Old Red Sandstone. I trust the new numbers will
follow the first in rapid succession. I love now and then to
find a resting-place ; and your works always give me one.
The opinions of Geoffrey St Hilaire and his dark school
seem to be gaining some ground in England. I detest them,
because I think them untrue. They shut out all argument
from design and all notion of a Creative Providence, and in
so doing they appear to me to deprive physiology of its life
and strength, and language of its beauty and meaning. I
am as much offended in taste by the turgid mystical bombast
of Geoffroy, as I am disgusted by his cold and irrational
materialism. When men of his school talk of the elective
affinity of organic types, I hear a jargon I cannot comprehend,
and I turn from it in disgust ; and when they talk of spon-
taneous generation and transmutation of species, they seem to
me to try nature by an hypothesis, and not to try their
hypothesis by nature. Where are their facts on which to
form an inductive truth ? I deny their starting condition.
' Oh ! but/ they reply, ' we have progressive development in
geology.' Now I allow (as all geologists must do) a kind
of progressive development. For example, the first fish are
below the reptiles ; and the first reptiles older than man.
I say we have successive forms of animal life adapted to
successive conditions (so far, proving design), and not derived
in natural succession in the ordinary way of generation. But
if no single fact in actual nature allows us to suppose that
the new species and orders were produced successively in the
natural way, how did they begin ? I reply by a way out of
and above common, known, material nature, and this way I
call creation. Generation and creation are two distinct ideas,
and must be described by two distinct words ; unless we
wish to introduce utter confusion of thought and language.
CRITICISM IN THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 87
In this view I think you agree with me ; for I spoke to 1845.
you on the subject when we met (alas, ten years since !) at ^ Et> 6o>
Dublin. 1 ..."
On the day Sedgwick wrote the last letter he intimated to
the editor of The Edinburgh Review his willingness to try his
hand at destroying the influence of what he called "a rank pill
of asafcetida and arsenic, covered with gold leaf 2 ." By return
of post came a most effusive reply. "At the close of my
first glance at the book," wrote Mr Napier, "I instantly said
to myself that you were the man, and the only one known to
me, capable of taking it to pieces aright ; capable of exposing
the shallow but imposing and dangerous fallacies of which it
is made up, and which threatens by its popularity with learned
women, and half-read and shallow men, to deluge the country
of Bacon and Newton with modes of thinking upon philo-
sophical subjects equally spurious and unmanly....! have
only now to ask whether I may hope to see the wished-for
Article for my next Number ?" Sedgwick lost not a moment
in setting to work, and by the middle of June had com-
pleted his first and last attempt at formal criticism. He
spared no pains. The best authorities on the points in dispute
were consulted ; Herschel, Agassiz, Owen, and Professor
Clark, to whom the pages on.fcetal development were in great
measure due. As time was precious, each section was printed
while the next was being written, so that Sedgwick had no
opportunity of having the whole essay under his eye at once 3 .
1 The whole letter is printed in Louis Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence,
i vols. 8vo. i. pp. 383 387.
2 To Macvey Napier, 10 April, 1845. Printed, with three other letters on
the same subject, in Selection from the Correspondence of the late Macvey Napier,
Esq. 8vo. Lond. 1879.
8 Sedgwick told his niece Isabella, in a letter dated 3 July, 1845 : " It: was
written during the hours of the very early morning the only time when the
rheumatism gave me a reprieve, and when my head was clear. When I finished
a sheet or two I forwarded the MS. to Edinburgh, so that part of my article was
there passing through the press, while the other part was slowly uncoiling itself
from my brain in Cambridge. My last proof-sheet was sent off after the Association
met."
FIELD-LECTURE.
1845. Hence the unusual length of the article, notwithstanding
JEt. 60. numerous editorial excisions a length which drove Mr
Napier to despair, as sheet succeeded sheet, and still the end
did not come. The sixth sheet was all but filled before
Sedgwick could be induced to stop. The result can hardly be
called successful. No doubt everything that could be said to
damage the Vestiges, both in conception and execution, is to
be found in the article. But, notwithstanding its solid merits,
and some eloquent passages, it is dogmatical, ponderous,
dull. Sedgwick had said himself, in one of his letters to
Mr Napier, that he wished for Sydney Smith at his elbow; and
his own laboured periods make the reader long for the light
touch of that brilliant humourist. Sedgwick was too much in
earnest to write effectively ; he attacked with savage ferocity
instead of calm criticism or good-humoured ridicule; in a
word, he used a sledge-hammer where a birch-rod would
have been a suitable weapon. "Nevertheless, it is a grand
piece of argument against mutability of species," as Darwin
wrote to Lyell, "and," he added, "I read it with fear and
trembling 1 "!
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
April 27th, 1845.
"...On Friday last I had my field-lecture. I did not enjoy
the scamper, as I had the gout hanging about me, and I was
excessively fatigued. We went round by Willingham and
Haddenham, so that we had passed over 26 or 27 miles
before we reached Ely. There we lunched, and examined
the new cuttings for the railroad. I have now a noble horse
I call Mercury, but in truth he is almost too much for me.
Several of the young men were well-mounted, and by no
means disposed to spare their horses, and in crossing Willing-
ham fen I came in second ; yet I pulled hard more than half
the way, and wished to go slower...."
1 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, i. 344.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT CAMBRIDGE. 89
To Hugh Miller, Esq. 1845.
CAMBRIDGE, May 8tk, 1845. ^ t . 60.
Dear Sir,
I have received several copies of The Witness
newspaper containing your instructive and most amusing
letters on the Hebrides. Whether I have to thank you
personally or some one else, for sending them, I cannot tell,
but I am sure I owe you a very large debt of thanks for the
information you have given me. I cannot persuade myself
to address you as a stranger, after having read your work on
the Old Red Sandstone, which gave me, on its first perusal,
and ever since, more pleasure than I can describe in words,
without seeming to run into the extravagance of flattery. I
only speak the plain truth when I tell you that I was, and
continue to be, delighted with it. The British Association
meets here next June I think on the i8th. I do not know
whether your engagements will permit you to come on that
occasion ; but come when you will I shall rejoice to see you,
and shew you my Museum....
Believe me, dear Sir,
very faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
Sedgwick had done his best to bring the British Associa-
tion to Cambridge. He delighted in these gatherings. "Were
there no other benefit from the British Association," he wrote
to Herschel 1 , "it would pay us well for our cost and labour
by bringing our honoured friends around us. For years back
I have been so bothered by gouty maladies that I have done
nothing. But these meetings give back to me a momen-
tary life and energy. So I have a double cause to thank
them." At the same time he admitted to another friend that
he "dreaded its coming; my crazy body will be hard-taxed by
it." And this was no doubt the case ; for though he did not
allow outward signs of fatigue to appear, he was completely
knocked up when it was over. " It went off admirably,"
1 To Sir J. F. W. Herschel, n April, 1845.
90 MADE VICE-MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE.
1845. he wrote, " the best and most intellectual meeting we ever
JEt. 60. had, though not the most splendid and numerous. I wish I
had been in more vigorous health, but I did my best. My
task was laborious, for I had the chair of the Geological
Section, as I had at Liverpool. All the business over I went
to Ely with a rather large party. I was so exhausted that
when they went to see the Cathedral I undressed and went
to bed ; and a comfortable sleep of two hours enabled me to
keep my head up the rest of the evening 1 ."
Sedgwick opened the geological section with a paper On
the Geology of the Neig Jib our hood of Cambridge , a subject on
which he had already spoken to the Philosophical Society,
and which he frequently recurred to in subsequent years. As
usual, however, his most successful efforts were unpremedi-
tated ; and his speech at the last meeting, when he proposed
a vote of thanks to the Mayor and Corporation, was probably
far more effective than his elaborate lecture.
In July of this year Sedgwick was elected to the important
office of Vice-Master of Trinity College, vacant by the resig-
nation of the Reverend Thomas Thorp.
It will be remembered that Sedgwick had done no field-
geology since the summer of 1842, when his work among the
Lake Mountains was interrupted by bad weather. This year,
he says, " I spent the whole summer in going over a part of
my old work in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and North
Lancashire, endeavouring to bring the rocks above the
Coniston Limestone (the equivalent of the Bala Limestone)
into some accordance with the groups of the upper and
true Silurian system 2 ."
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 29^, 1845.
My dear Kate,
I trust that you are happily settled at Rome.
Your letter found me somewhere among the Lake mountains,
1 To Isabella Sedgwick, 3 July, 1845.
2 Preface to Salter's Catalogue, p. xxv.
RUTHVEWS DOG CHARLIE. 91
doing battle with the rocks. The weather was wet and 1845.
tempestuous ; twice I was made ill by it ; once I was fairly &*. 60.
laid up, and confined to my room for five days. I did,
however, contrive to do the task I had set myself, and my
summer was not unprofitable. For my companion I had a
famous fossil-collector named John Ruthven. There is an
old Latin proverb which in plain English tells us 'not to
trust a cobbler beyond his last.' But all rules have their
exceptions, and Ruthven, though once a cobbler, is now a
geologist whose fame will last longer than the stoutest shoe
that ever came off his ancient last. Your sister is a great
poet. Tell her to send me a song in which Ruthven and his
dog may figure like the spread wings of Pegasus. I beg her
pardon, I have not yet introduced the dog. His name is
Charlie a beautiful gallant fellow, between a setter and a
spaniel. He soon took such a fancy to me, that he never left
me, except when he ran after the grouse and hares which he
started on the mountains ; and he soon returned to ask my
thanks for the merry interludes in my work. He ate from
my hand, and slept under my bed. After about a month's
ramble we turned back to Kendal, the native place and home
of the cobbler and his dog. There I deposited an enormous
heap of stones, which were put in a sack near the landing-
place on the first floor of the inn, The King's Arms. When
we started on our next round Charlie was missing we could
not wait and the conclusion was that he had gone across the
fields with the cobbler's little grand-daughter, who, in spite
of his devotion to me, had still a corner of Charlie's heart.
So he was left behind. Just sixteen days after, our work
among the mountains brought us to Bowness only nine
short miles from Kendal. It was Saturday evening. The
scientific Ruthven began to yearn towards his wife and
children. I remained over Sunday at Bowness, and my
companion spent the day at Kendal. Early on the Monday
morning he returned with Charlie, and the joy of the new
meeting was such as to be worthy of Olympia's pen of fire.
92 RUTHVEN'S DOG CHARLIE.
1845. Charlie did everything but talk, and indeed his looks were
i. 60. beyond expression. But what had he been about during the
sixteen long days ? Listen and you shall hear.
Not many minutes after we started from Kendal he came
cantering up to the inn he looked wistfully ran to my bed-
room and took his place under my bed. From this position
he was soon turned out by the maid's broomstick ; for a new
guest had come, and the room was wanted. On changing
his quarters he, however, spied the great sack of stones which,
with curious eye, he had seen me pack. On it he mounted
guard and when the maidkin asked him to come down he
replied with a growl, ' This is my Master's and you shall not
touch it. Here I mean to remain.' This speech was accom-
panied with such a significant grin, and such a show of fangs,
that the lass was fain to come to a parley. The mistress was
called up as umpire, Charlie stuck to his stone-bag, and was
as little disposed to give up the point to the mistress as he had
been to the maid. * Let the poor fellow remain,' said Mrs
Boniface. ' He is a faithful dog, and will soon be tired when
he finds that the Professor's gone from us.' She was mistaken,
however. He kept his station at the sack sixteen days, only
rushing down stairs, from time to time, when he heard a
carriage pulling up at the door. Then he would rush down
to the yard, take a look at the travellers, and come back with
a look of bitter disappointment. For three entire days he
never tasted food. On the fourth day he ate greedily what
was offered him, and then mounted guard as before. Now
he began to be interesting. The servants fed him. He
allowed them just to pat him on the head; but if anyone
dared to touch the sack, Charlie's blood was up in an instant,
and the hand was compelled to retire. All Kendal was full
of the story. All travellers were shewn the dog. One gentle-
man offered a large price for it ; but the landlady told him it
was not her property, and that no sum could purchase it
before our return.
When Ruthven reached Kendal, he enquired of his wife
NEWMAN'S SECESSION TO ROME. 93
what was become of Charlie. ' I have not seen him for 1845.
a fortnight/ replied Dame Ruthven. * He came twice, soon &* 6o -
after you went away ; but, finding that you and the Pro-
fessor were not come back, he ran out the moment the door
was opened for him ; and both times he refused to take
any food.' With much surprise my friend Ruthven then
went to The King's Arms to inquire there for Charlie, and
Charlie knew his voice and came rushing down the stairs
to meet him. Great was his joy; but the moment after
he ran down the inn yard, looked into every carriage, and
then came back with an expression of deep disappointment.
Ruthven then heard the story I have told you. The dog
followed his master back to Bowness, and the rest you
know already. Here are the prose materials for your sister's
poem....
Last night I returned to Cambridge; and here I am,
writing a long letter, about nothing, to my dear young friend
Kate Malcolm. Next Monday I begin my lectures. They
will be my chief employment till the beginning of the
Christmas vacation. Our Master, whom I saw at chapel this
morning, is well. He is putting up a statue of Lord Bacon
in our chapel. It is a glorious and worthy monument, and is
at Whewell's sole cost. What say you to this ? While I
have been away they have put up a noble statue of Lord
Byron in our library. It was executed at Rome by the
greatest of modern sculptors the author of Night and
Morning. So we have something for your classical eyes
when you come back to look upon us....
You will before this have heard that Newman and more
than twenty others of the Oxford School have at length gone
over to Rome. Shame on them that they did not do so long
since ! Their attempt to remain in the Church of England
while they held opinions such as they have published, only
proves that fanaticism and vulgar honesty can seldom shake
hands and live together. I pity their delusion, I despise
their sophistry, and I hate their dishonesty. Personally I
94 AN OLD BACHELOR ON MARRIAGE.
1845. know them not. It is not of persons but of principles I
t. 60. am speaking. Often in my younger days have I wondered
at the proneness of the old nations to idolatry ; but I have
ceased to wonder. The sin of idolatry is knitted to the
human heart. We may worship a priest, or worship ourselves,
or worship our own works, while we are talking of idolatry,
and thinking that we are serving our Saviour. Ever, my
dear Kate, your affectionate friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Miss Wakefield.
CAMBRIDGE, October, 25, 1845.
"...This summer my way has been beset by honeymoon
parties. I never halted at a private house without hearing of
wandering brides, or of young persons who were on the very
verge of the matrimonial precipice. I hope my kind friends
on the banks of the Kent 1 will look well to their steps during
such a season, for if they slip into the gulf they will find it no
easy matter to get back again. Perhaps it is envy that makes
me hint this caution, for I did somewhat envy the happy faces
which met me at every turn. I verily believe all I am now
good for is that I am a warning to others stuck up like an
old broken mast on a shoal to teach good people how to steer,
without risk, into the haven of marriage. When you under-
take this voyage, may it be prosperous, and may every
blessing follow you and go with you ! "
The story of the dog Charlie was one of those dramatic
narratives which Sedgwick never tired of telling, or his friends
of listening to. Another, of equal interest, belongs also to this
year. It is printed, as nearly as possible, from Sedgwick's
dictation.
THE STORY OF BOY.
One summer, during the Cambridge Long Vacation, I had been
working among the rocks in the Lake district, and at last had
1 Miss Wakefield, afterwards Mrs Cropper of Ellergreen, was one of Sedg-
wick's earliest lady-pupils in geology. She lived near Sedgwick in Westmore-
land, a village on the River Kent, for which see Vol. i. p. 33.
MR BOWSTEA&S DOG < BOY: 95
reached the mountain-ranges overlooking the beautiful valley of the ^45.
Eden. After a long day on Crossfell, I went, towards evening, to ^ t 6o
the house of Mr Bowstead of Beck Bank, near Great Salkeld. He
had invited me to stay at his house, knowing I was a friend of his
son, the late Bishop of Lichfield 1 . Mr Bowstead was a grand
example of a Westmoreland Statesman. He lived upon his own
land, looked after it himself, and had, besides, great flocks of sheep
upon the extensive moors which surrounded his estate.
Before going into the house he walked with me round his
garden and orchard. I observed under one of the apple trees, a
stone, with the word BOY deeply cut on it. Mr Bowstead saw that
I was looking at it with some curiosity, and said : " My faithful
dog Boy is buried there ; I have put up that stone to his memory.
When I was a young man he saved my life. I will tell you the
story after supper, if you care to hear it."
I did full justice to Mr Bowstead's excellent supper, for I had
been walking all day, and was very hungry. After supper we drew
our chairs near the fire, for a September evening in Westmoreland is
often chilly, and I reminded Mr Bowstead of his promise.
"I am becoming an old man now," he said, "and Boy was my
favourite dog many years ago, when I was a young man. That dog
lying at your feet is one of his descendants" pointing, as he spoke,
to a handsome long-haired collie, which was lying on the hearth,
lazily blinking at the fire. " Boy was my constant companion in many
a long tramp over the wild moors which lie above Great Salkeld,
and he was wonderfully clever and sensible. After a great snow-
storm, when the sheep were covered up in the deep drifts which
collect in the hollows of the hills, he would go out with me, and
some of the farm-men, and having ascertained what we were in
search of, probably from seeing us dig out some sheep that were
only partially buried, he would begin to snuff about in a peculiar
manner, give a little whimper, and scratch with his paws on the
snow, look at us, and then run on, and repeat the signs by which he
told us a sheep was imprisoned below in the drift. We dug through
the snow with our spades, and there certainly, in a few minutes, we
came upon a sheep, which generally ran off, looking very wild, but
apparently none the worse for its imprisonment.
"When Boy was four or five years old the winter had begun
earlier than usual. In the first days of December we had frost and
occasional snow-showers, and the cold increased as the month went
on. One morning heavy clouds were driving across the sky, and I
knew that the short winter's day would be followed, most likely, by
a wild and tempestuous night ; so early in the afternoon I set off
with Boy and a younger dog, to see after the sheep on the moors.
The men were busy about the farm-work, and I told them I should
not want them. I had a hard afternoon on the fells, but at last, by
help of the dogs, I collected the sheep into a little, sheltered,
1 James Bowstead, B.A. 1824, Fellow of Corpus Christi College; Bishop of
Lichfield, 1840 43.
96 MR BOWSTEA&S DOG ' BOY:
1845. mountain-valley, and turned to go home. It had been freezing
t. 60. hard, and was beginning to snow, and the daylight was nearly gone.
In jumping down from the top of a high wall, I slipped and fell,
dragging down in my fall, some heavy stones which fell upon me.
I think I must have been stunned at first : for when I came to
myself, and tried to get up, I found I could not stand. My leg was
broken. I tried to drag myself along the ground, but I soon found
that was impossible, and in intolerable anguish I realized that I
could get no help; for I was more than three miles from human
habitation.
" I knew my father would send to seek me, when the hours
passed and I did not return home, but I knew also that it was most
unlikely I should be found before morning, when. I should be beyond
human aid. The two dogs sat at a little distance, watching me ; I
called Boy to me, he licked my face and hands, but when I pointed
to my broken leg, and said, " Gang hame, and tell 'em," and tried to
drive him away, he would not go, but sat down again at a little
distance, and sorrowfully watched me. At last a thought struck me.
I pulled off my woollen mitten, sopped it in the blood which was
oozing from my fractured leg, called Boy again to me, showed him
my bleeding leg, and the bloody mitten, tied it securely round his
neck by a strip torn from my neckerchief, and again said, " Gang
hame Boy, and fetch 'em." The words were scarcely out of my
mouth, when the dog bounded off, and was out of sight in a moment,
the young dog following. I then knew, if Boy could save me, I
should be saved, so I had a gleam of hope ; and having commended
my soul to the care of Almighty God, I waited with patience.
Indeed I think I was benumbed with the cold, and probably fell
asleep.
" My father thought I was late in returning, and my mother had
been watching the heavy snow-clouds through the fast-gathering
darkness with some anxiety, when they heard Boy at the door,
barking to be let in, and they supposed I was not far behind him.
But the dog did not, as usual, lie down by the fire, but whined and
moaned, and at last ran up to my mother, put his paws on her knee,
and looked her earnestly in the face. In a moment, she saw the
mitten tied round his neck, knew it was mine, and found it was
bloody. The dog continued whining, and pulled at her gown. My
father and mother recognized at once, that I had met with an
accident, and that Boy had come for help. My father called the
farm men together, and lighted the lanterns ; my mother got
blankets and brandy, and in a very few minutes the party set o-ut,
Boy leading the way. He had waited patiently while the prepara-
tions were being made, but now he trotted on in front, looking back
occasionally to see that the party were following, and as if he
wanted them to make haste : and so he took them straight to the
place where I was lying, a white heap in the snow. I was aroused
to consciousness by Boy whining and licking my face. He seemed
perfectly satisfied when I was lifted up on a rude litter made of the
MISUNDERSTANDING WITH WHEW ELL. 97
blankets and poles the men had brought, trotted home besides me, [845.
and for many days could scarcely be persuaded to leave my bed- ^ ti 6
side.
" Boy lived for many years after with us, as a much-loved friend,
and when he died was buried in the orchard, and the stone you saw
was put over his grave."
It was during this year that a serious misunderstanding
threatened to sever the friendship which had so long subsisted
between Sedgwick and Whewell. That their old cordiality
should be impaired by the altered relations in which they now
stood to each other was inevitable ; and it is perhaps surprising
that the explosion should have been so long deferred, when it
is remembered that both were vehement, impulsive men,
disposed to do suddenly and violently what they thought
right, without regard to consequences, and, in Whewell's case,
with but little regard for the feelings of others. The quarrel
began on this wise.
When Sedgwick returned from Germany in 1839 he
brought back with him a pair of Pomeranian Spitzhunds,
which he called Max and Shindy. Max did not long survive,
but Mrs Shindy lived to extreme old age, and was rarely
separated from her master, either at Cambridge or at Norwich.
It may be doubted whether she actually slept in his college-
rooms, but she certainly passed the whole day there, and her
puppies were the most highly-valued gifts that Sedgwick
could bestow on his young friends. In short she became an
institution as inseparable from Sedgwick's personality as
his voluminous great-coat or his respirator. No doubt her
presence in college was an anomaly. The statutes by which
the college was then governed proscribed dogs, ferrets, hawks,
and singing-birds; but nobody ever objected to a canary; nor
was it thought wrong to go out hunting or shooting, though
the statute went on to say that no person was to be addicted
to either of those sports. Besides, in the opinion of the
University, Sedgwick was a privileged person, whose conduct
was above all rules. Whewell, however, thought otherwise.
He was too conscientious to make exceptions in favour of his
s. ii. 7
98 MISUNDERSTANDING WITH WHEW ELL.
1845. oldest and most intimate friend. In this he was no doubt
JEt. 60. right, but he had an unfortunate habit of doing what was
right in the way most calculated to give offence. So, instead
of speaking to Sedgwick privately, he wrote him a letter.
6 June, 1845.
My dear Sedgwick,
I have a request to make to you as Master to which I
attach great importance. I think it very important that we should
conform to the Rules made by the College for its good order, and [to]
the Statutes to which we have so recently given our consent as the
Laws by which we are willing to be governed. Your frequent
appearance in the College Courts accompanied by a dog is in-
consistent both with those Rules and with the Statutes cap. xx. If
the practice is persisted in either the Master will be understood to
be deficient in enforcing the Rules and Statutes, or you will be
understood to be defying the Master and disregarding the laws and
statutes.
This being the case, I earnestly request that you will discontinue
the practice to which I have referred. Your own regard to the
College to which we have both so long been bound with ties of
affection and duty will prevent your feeling any offence at this
request, and will, I hope, [enable] l you to comply with it.
I am, my dear Sedgwick,
Yours most truly,
W. WHEWELL 2 .
The inflexible justice of this letter cannot be denied ; but,
having regard to Sedgwick's peculiar position, his frequent
confinement to his rooms for many weeks in succession, and
the pleasure which he derived from the society of his dog,
it was both unwise and unkind. Sedgwick was exceedingly
angry, and expressed himself in terms which, if they ever
reached Whewell's ears, would not have mended matters.
It is possible that this storm might have blown over, had
not a second, and still more unfortunate, occurrence, added
fuel to Sedgwick's indignation. Among the guests whom he
introduced into hall at a large dinner given to the strangers
present at the Association was Mr Jerdan, editor of The
Literary Gazette. Whewell had been greatly incensed by
1 This word is illegible in the draft.
2 Printed from a draft in Dr Whewell's diary, now preserved in the Library of
Trinity College.
W HE WELLS GIFT OF BACON'S STATUE. 99
some unfavourable criticism in that journal, and on seeing 1845.
Jerdan, sent his servant to ask whose guest he was 1 . It is ^ 6o>
hardly necessary to observe that Whewell was entirely in the
wrong. The Master of Trinity College has no control over
the hall ; and no right to interfere with the privilege of the
Fellows to introduce whom they please. An angry corre-
spondence followed, which, perhaps fortunately, has not been
preserved. Whewell was as quick to forgive as he was to
take offence, and it is conceivable that he fully admitted his
error. Nor did he and Sedgwick have any further open
difference; indeed early in the following year we find
him asking Sedgwick's advice on the geological chapters
in his History of the Inductive Sciences, of which he was
preparing a new edition, and Sedgwick prescribing for Mrs
Whewell "a few days of Norwich air breathed by my
fireside;" but it may be doubted whether their friendship
was ever really reestablished on its old basis.
At the beginning of the Michaelmas term it became
Sedgwick's duty, as Vice-Master, to convey the thanks of
the College to Whewell for his gift of Bacon's statue. The
letter is a formal document, into which personal feelings
could not enter; but the private letter which Whewell
appended to his official answer shews that he was anxious
to seize the opportunity of saying something which might
convince Sedgwick of his sincere wish for a complete re-
conciliation.
TRIN. COLL. November yth, 1845.
My dear Master,
The enclosed letter 2 , though dated November ist, only
reached me on Wednesday evening, and I now employ my first
moments of leisure in complying, as far as I am able, with the
united wishes of the Resident Fellows of the College.
I must say, with truth, that a more delightful task could not
have been imposed on me; for I feel, in common with every good
1 Our account of this affair is derived from Mr Jerdan's Autobiography, iv.
295, compared with Mr Romilly's Diary.
2 A letter from the resident Fellows requesting him " to express to the Master,
in our names, and in the amplest terms, our grateful acknowledgment of his
munificent donation."
72
ioo WHEWELVS GIFT OF BACON'S STATUE.
1845. member of our Society, that the noble Monument with which you
yt. 60. have adorned our Chapel entitles you to our heart-felt thanks, and
the expressions of our deepest personal gratitude.
You give us credit, I am well assured, for such sentiments ; and
it is in no hope of convincing yon that we entertain them that we
now address you ; but we do so to satisfy our own feelings, and to
perform a positive duty we owe to ourselves and the College.
I have often longed to see a Statue of Bacon erected in our
Chapel, and it is a matter of most honest and heart-felt exultation
to see one now, worthy, as far as any sculptured stone can be,
of that illustrious Philosopher, given to us by the munificence of
one whom Providence has placed at the head of our Society, who
has spent the best years of his life as our brother, and who has
drunk deeply from those fountains from which Bacon and Newton
drew their strength.
When the heart is full a few words will best tell its meaning ;
but I hope you will allow me to add a few words more on my own
account. Let me then congratulate you on having so well completed
an object you have long earnestly wished for. The statue you have
erected is a noble work of art, combining, as it does, the severity of
the old Monument with the grace and freedom of more modern
sculpture. It is, in this respect, worthy of a place by the side of
our glorious statue of Newton. It represents Bacon, as we may
figure him to ourselves, in his latter days, when his life was most
truly great and glorious.
Our College History is our best inheritance. You, my dear
Master, by your example, your great intellectual labours, and your
munificence, have done your utmost to keep in our minds this
goodly inheritance, and to make us worthy of it ; and I trust that
under Providence you will be permitted (to whatever station you
may be called) to enjoy the happy fruits of your long-continued
services in the great cause of scientific truth and sound academic
learning.
It delights us all to think that there is a moral fitness in having
the sculptured figures of Bacon and Newton in our house of daily
prayer ; one represented in the repose of philosophic age, the other
in the vigour of life, and gazing towards the heavens as if under the
inspiration of some great discovery.
The philosophic labours of these men were not carried on to
exalt themselves. They bowed before a power above all material
nature, and they had an aim far above this world's knowledge and
all the honours it could bring them. They laboured honestly and
nobly to 'erect a rich storehouse to the glory of the Creator,' and
the good of the human race. It is a high privilege to have
contributed, as you have done, to keep alive such remembrances as
these, both among the older and younger members of our Society;
and I trust that the sobering as well as the exciting influence of
these sentiments will be felt among us, and those who follow us, so
long as England shall last as a nation, and its institutions and
CHRISTMAS AT COLLINGWOOD. 101
monuments are the admiration of wise and good men. Pray accept 1845.
this expression of my hearty good-will and gratitude, and believe me, ^ t . 6
my dear Master,
Affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK, Vice-Master 1 .
TRINITY LODGE, November 8tk, 1845.
My dear Sedgwick,
I enclose herewith a letter containing my acknowledge-
ments of the kind things you have said to me on the part of the
Fellows who requested you to address me ; and I cannot help
adding a few lines to thank you, though I cannot do it adequately,
for the manner in which you have discharged this office. I think it
fortunate that the communication on this subject was to be made
through you, who know and feel so well the purport and the value of
what Bacon did. .1 have already said, in a book in which I have
ventured to treat of Bacon's philosophy, that you seemed destined
to be my fellow-labourer in such a task 2 ; and we have lately had just
reason to say so. The admirable and noble sentiments respecting
the influence of our monuments which your letter contains, give an
additional value to your expressions of kindness relative to the
monument now erected. May you, my dear Sedgwick, long continue
to exercise upon us and upon the world a beneficial influence by the
utterance of such sentiments ; and may you and I long see the
continued and increased prosperity of the College which we both so
dearly love.
I am always, my dear Sedgwick,
Affectionately yours,
W. WHEWELL.
Sedgwick spent Christmas at Collingwood with the
Herschels. A pleasant party of old friends had been got
together, and there were games for the young people, into
which he entered with as much delight as any of them.
It is amusing to read his account of a grand Christmas
tree, then a novelty in England, for which he apologizes to
his correspondent as "a German custom which old Sir
William religiously kept up, and which Sir John continues 3 ."
Early in January Sedgwick laid before the Geological
Society some results of his last summer's work. The paper,
On the Classification of the Fossiliferous Slates of Cumberland,
1 Printed from the original, preserved in Trinity College Lodge.
2 The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. See Vol. I. p. 2.
3 To Miss Malcolm, 30 January, 1846.
102 GALLANTRY OF JOHN EATON.
1846. Westmoreland, and Lancashire, was a continuation of the
JEt. 61. paper with the same title read to the Society in March,
1845 5 an d at the end of May he wrote a fourth letter to
Wordsworth, embodying his latest views on the geology of
the Lake district.
The two next letters make us think of the Christmas
Vacation of 1804, when Sedgwick first visited the Aingers
at Whittlesea, and made the acquaintance of young Harry
Smith 1 .
To James Ainger, Esq.
CAMBRIDGE, April $th, 1846.
My dear Ainger,
I send you by this post a copy of The Cambridge
Independent Press for the past week. On the last page you
will see a letter by J. Eaton a son of my servant. I think
it a delightful production ; and (excepting Harry Smith's
despatch 2 , which nothing can reach) it is one of the most soul-
stirring letters that has come from India. Yet the writer is a
private soldier. I will do my best to get him at least made a
serjeant. I believe he is an excellent steady lad, and I am
sure he deserves promotion. All his letters are first-rate
full of eloquence and spirit, and quite correctly written* But
enough of the letter. Let me from my heart congratulate
Sir H. Smith's friends on the honour shed on them and their
native town. It must indeed be a moment of exultation to
you all. Of course you have read Wellington's and Peel's
speeches of last Thursday, and indeed all the speeches. I do
not believe the old Duke ever spoke so much praise in the
course of his life before, and all he said was from the heart.
I came back from Norwich only yesterday. Pray send
me some Whittlesea news. Where are Dr Ainger's family?
Where Mr Cook's 3 ? &c. &c. If Miss Eleanor Smith is now
1 Vol. i. p. 76.
2 Sir H. G. W. Smith won the battle of Aliwal. 28 January, 1846, with
12,000 men and 32 guns against 19,000 Sikhs with 68 guns.
* Rev. J. T. Cook, Fellow of St John's College, an early friend of Sedgwick's,
married one of Dr Ainger's sisters.
GALLANTRY OF JOHN EATON. 103
in Whittlesea, give my best remembrances to her, and my 1846.
heartfelt congratulations. What eventful years have passed ^ 6l
since I met her at a Whittlesea Ball ! At that time your
poor brother was over head and ears in love with her. My
best wishes to your family. Ever most truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
What a lucky fellow Sir H. Smith was to get a battle to
himself! and such a battle !
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, [19 April,} 1846.
Dearest Fan,
...I have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
about young Eaton, and he promises to write to India, so I
hope the heroic lover will be a serjeant. I have his original
letter before me. One or two sentences have been altered by
the Editor of The Independent Press, and not for the better.
After describing the three cheers given to them by the line
after their charge, it goes on as follows : ' Give my best love
to my dear Brothers and Sisters. I wish they would all write
and send some newspapers. Kiss my little niece. Also, my
dear mother, tell Rhoda Harding I thought of her in the
battle's heat, and that as I cut at the enemy and parried their
thrusts my arm was strong on her account ; for I felt at that
moment that I loved her more than ever, and may Almighty
God bless her. Tell her to write to me often, for something
assures me that I shall surmount all difficulties.' This is, I
think, exquisitely beautiful, for it is the strong language of
pure feeling in the hour of severest trial. You would suppose
you were reading the letter of some Middle Age hero, rather
than one by a private in an English regiment, and in the
1 9th century. I have no more paper and no more time.
Ever, dearest Fan,
Affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
104 HARROGATE WATERS.
1846. The gout was Sedgwick's " close companion " from the
Et. 61. beginning of March to the end of June, when he betook
himself to Harrogate in the hopes of shaking it off. But
the " sweet waters " as he called them, " offended my nostrils,
and did no good to my hands and feet." Still, Yorkshire
was always a pleasant place to him, and excursions with his
relatives compensated him for his disappointments. "What
glorious expeditions!" he wrote afterwards: "what noble
scenery ! such scenes not merely delight the senses, but
minister food to the heart and understanding. Two cathe-
drals one of them perhaps the finest in the world ! And
three such noble middle-age ruins ! the monuments of bygone
days, and of sentiments of piety which, however misdirected,
belonged to the loftiest aspirations of the human heart nay,
which, during a barbarous age were often a refuge for the
oppressed, and the means of keeping up whatever was left of
letters and of science 1 ."
The first days of July found him in Wales accompanied by
John Ruthven, " polishing up some of his old work." The
weather interfered a good deal with their expeditions, and
Sedgwick was out of sorts and out of spirits. Still he could
give a good account of what he had accomplished to Mur-
chison. After pointing out that it was impossible for him to
come to the meeting of the British Association at South-
ampton (at which Murchison was to be President), he
proceeds :
CARMARTHEN, August jth, 1846.
" Spite of the merciless rain I did some good work in
North Wales. I have my Cambrian System better in hand
than I had, having now locked Carnarvonshire and Merioneth-
shire together. There was a screw loose before. As a great
physical system they are inferior to all South Wales (ex-
cepting Pembrokeshire of which I speak nothing and know
little or nothing). Again, much of South Wales is inferior to
1 To Isabella Sedgwick, 13 July, 1846.
WELSH NAMES. 105
the two bottom groups of your Silurian System, and therefore 1846.
out of your System in the sense in which you first used the &* 6l -
words.
I will not now touch on controversy, only I state thus
much ; that I have now the precise general views I had at the
end of 1832 of course with infinitely improved details and
better sections. South Wales is a great puzzle, with much of
which I mean not to trouble my head."
A lesson on the way to pronounce Welsh names will
contrast agreeably with these stony details.
To Miss fanny Hicks.
TREMADOC, July 2$rd, 1846.
" ...The miserably damp weather made me rheumatic and
low-spirited, so I nursed one day at Carnarvon, and then drove
to Pwllheli. What a charming name! In order to pronounce
the first part (Pwll], you must blow out your cheeks just as
you do when you are puffing at a very obstinate candle ;
then you must rapidly and cunningly put your tongue to the
roof of your mouth behind the fore teeth, and blow hard
between your cheeks and your tongue, holding your tongue
quite steady all the while, as a man does a spade just before
he is going to give a good thrust with his right foot. With
such a beautiful direction you cannot fail to pronounce Pwll
quite like a genuine Celt. Should the word be Bwlch, take
care to observe the previous directions, only, in addition,
while the wind is whistling between your rigid tongue (sticking
forwards spade-fashion), and your distended cheeks, contrive
by way of finale to give a noise with your throat such as you
make when an intrusive fishbone is sticking in it. So much
for my first Welsh lesson. Take care, dear Fan, that it be not
thrown away.
I remained two days at Pwllheli. Yesterday I packed
my baggage, and drove to this place. I have now been
eleven days in Wales, and have not once seen the tops of the
mountains ; they are covered by trailing clouds.
io6 GEOLOGY IN NORTH WALES.
846. If you write by return of post you may address me at
t. 61. Dolgelly, North Wales. (N. B. this word is by no means to be
sounded like our maid Doll's jelly-bag. The // must always
be blown, in the way I told you, between the tongue and
the cheeks.) If you put off writing for a day or two, why
then address me at Post Office, Machynlleth, North Wales.
What a charming word again ! Mack has the bone-in-the-
throat sound ; yn is sounded as the grunt given by a broken-
winded pavier, when he is using his rammer ; lletk you
already know how to sound, if you have cared for my lessons."
Having settled the particular points he wished to in-
vestigate in North Wales, Sedgwick "spent about ten days
in beating to the right and left, along the valley of the Towy
between Llandovery and Carmarthen 1 ." This, it will be
remembered, he had already visited under Murchison's
guidance, in 1834: but evidently he had no longer the
strength and spirits which in former years had carried him
triumphantly through tedious traverses. " I have during
summer been wandering through a lovely country;" he wrote
after his return, " but I was almost in solitude. I had no one
to talk to ; and I could not multiply my pleasures, or add to
their greatness, by seeing them reflected from a friend's eye,
or echoed back by a friend's tongue. And my health was
never quite what I could have wished. In short, I am old,
and cold-hearted, and torpid, and ricketty, and there is no
help for it. Finally I cut and run, so as to be in Trin. Coll.
by the 1st of October to take part in the Fellowship Ex-
amination 2 ."
CAMBRIDGE, December iqth, 1846.
My dear Lady Herschel,
The season reminds me of the delightful visit I
had last Christmas at Collingwood House. I trust that the
tree will flourish ; and that it will be surrounded with a ring
of happy faces, and that no sorrowful heart may be inside
1 To Miss Fanny Hicks, 13 September, 1846.
2 To Miss Kate Malcolm, 16 October, 1846.
THE NEW PLANET. 107
your house, though your house be full. Pray spare me a 1846.
minute to let me know that you and Sir John and all the &* Si-
young people are quite well. I did know the Christian names
of ten; but an old man's memory is full of chinks, through
which things pass as fast as water through a riddle. Let me
see ! Miss Herschel has no name, and the second is my dear
niece Isabella. Then I am at a dead stop, and cannot go a
step farther without the risk of stumbling, so I had better not
expose myself by guessing. Give my love to them all. I
have been lecturing all the past term to an immense class
quite a geological " revival ; " and several ladies did me the
honour to sit under me. Just as I finished last week, my
voice struck work. A dire cold took possession of me, and
made me good for nothing ; and, though much better, I am
still a grumbler. I must however endeavour to clear my
vocal organs against Tuesday, when we are to celebrate by
every festive demonstration our three-hundredth anniver-
sary.
I have no news to send you. We, some of us, grumble at
our Astronomer for not securing the new planet, after Adams
had tied a noose tightly about its neck so early as September,
1845. I dare say you have seen Airy's paper read before the
Astronomical Society ; and Challis has just published (as an
Observatory Report) a similar document, which puts Adams'
claims to honour in a stronger light than before. Is not the
whole thing provoking ? What says Sir John to it and of it ?
Is it not a pity that young Cantabs should be so modest ?
and that old Professors should not trust them ? When are we
to have the sweepings of the southern sky ? I remember a
nursery rhyme which runs as follows :
Oh Herschel ! oh Herschel ! where do you fly ?
To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.
No doubt the cobwebs of the old saw meant nebulcs. At
least it seems probable. Cobwebs and diamond-dust from all
the southern concave ! I am so stupified with cold that I
io8 TERCENTENARY FESTIVAL AT TRINITY.
1846. hardly can spell my own name. A thrice happy Christmas
Et - 6l - to all within your door, and round about you ! Ever truly
y urs - A. SEDGWICK.
The year 1846 ended with the celebration of the three
hundredth anniversary of the foundation of Trinity College by
a grand banquet in hall (22 December), an occasion which
would have been welcomed with enthusiasm by Sedgwick,
had he been in better health. But he had caught cold in
London early in December, and made it worse on his return
to Cambridge by helping to entertain Lord Brougham in
hall when he ought to have been nursing himself by his
fireside. The commemoration therefore found him "as melli-
fluous as a frog." Mr Romilly, however, has recorded that at
the end of dinner, when " Lord Monteagle made a warm-
hearted address (about old recollections) in proposing the
Vice-Master and Seniors, Sedgwick made one incomparably
better in returning thanks."
At that time the twelve days of Christmas were celebrated
with special hospitality, and on the last day of the old year
there was a midnight gathering in the Combination Room.
" We had a very merry evening," says Sedgwick, speaking
of the latter festival ; but, when it was over, he broke down
completely, and was confined for several weeks to his own
rooms. The following letters describe his condition and his
occupations.
To Miss F. Hicks.
TRINITY COLLEGE, January yd, 1847.
"...I have no news I hardly see a soul the college is
deserted, except by men looking dismally forward to the
Senate House examination. Only think ! to fill up time I
have been reading Robinson Crusoe ! For in the stupid
soddened state of my brain I can think of nothing worth
thinking about, except indeed when I sometimes think of
my friends, and wish myself amongst them. So, in pity, my
dear Fankin, and to do my cold good, pray send me a long
INFLUENZA. 109
letter the longer the better all full of Scalby news. I 1847.
hope you are all well, and then I am sure you will all be &* ^
happy; for you now make a full family muster. How infi-
nitely better than my most miserable solitude ! even though
you be a little bothered by the elements. The last account
your Mamma sent me gave a frightful account of the snow
up to the eaves of the houses ! Now, I suppose, it must be
over the chimney-tops. It lies thick in the court of Trinity,
and to all appearance, means to keep its place for some time
to come, and whenever I look out of my window it makes
me sneeze. The noises I make are horrible my nose is
quite indecent my eyes are two living fountains of salt
water voice I have none that is human, but I sometimes
bark like an old toothless mastiff. As for my figure I have
spectacles on nose a black velvet cap on my head a large
padded dressing-gown wrapped about me and my shoes
are slip-shod so I put them on in the morning, and so they
have remained ever since. In short I am little better than a
barking automaton. Having thus sent you my charming
picture, pray send me yours in return, or rather send me a
family picture Darby, Joan, and the chickens, etc. etc. A
thrice happy new year to every one of them !..."
To Archdeacon Hare.
CAMBRIDGE, February 2nd, 1847.
My dear Hare,
The great bell sounded for chapel this morning,
so I found that it must be a surplice day ; and on leaving my
bedroom I looked in the Calendar and saw that it was the
feast of the Purification. The sun was shining at the moment,
and there was some promise of a clear sky, which brought
two old monkish lines into my head I have formerly heard
Pugh 1 repeat in our Combination Room :
Si Sol splendescat Maria purificante
Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante.
1 William Pugh, B.A. 1789, for many years a senior Fellow of Trinity College.
He was a learned, but eccentric, person, of whom Sedgwick used to tell several
no LITERARY AMUSEMENTS.
1847. I am sure you know these lines well, but my Latin is in a
t. 62. sma u compass, and I make the most of what I have. Old
saws are not always sure, and perhaps the monk, should he
fail in giving us a biting spring, might shelter himself under
splendesco, for though the sun has done his best, I think he
has not to-day been resplendent. 'Tis in general a sign a
man has nothing to say when he begins to talk of the
weather; but indeed there are many things I wish to say,
and more than I can well pack in this sheet.
I promised to visit you during this Christmas vacation ;
and the vacation, in the widest sense of the word, is now
over, for college lectures were resumed this morning. I first
intended to visit you before the Commemoration ; but ill-
health forbad it. Then I hoped to come after soon after;
but since then I have been almost a prisoner in my own
chambers. Several times I went out and tried to resume my
duties, and each time I was seized by the throat, and driven
back to my solitary fireside. So at length I struck work
absolutely, took to slops and thin potations, and treated my
brain with things as light as those I put in my stomach.
But for old Daniel de Foe I should have died. I steadily
read through eighteen volumes of his works, at the rate of
about a volume a day. What a wonderful genius he was,
and unlike any one else in our literary history His style is,
you know, natural, idiomatic, and pithy ; and he sometimes,
without knowing it himself, rises into expressions both
grand and touching. But he is careless, and often ungram-
matical, and sometimes very coarse and vulgar. Some of
his vulgarisms I began to like, though they had no smack of
the north of England, which always has great charms for my
senses. He often uses such expressions as : 'while this was
a-doing ' ; ' as we were a-going ' etc. etc., and I suspect that
this form belongs to the old Saxon element of our tongue,
does it not ? Now I hate what I think is the modern form,
good stories. There is a notice of him in Gunning's Reminiscences, Ed. 1855,
Vol. ii. p. 53.
DANIEL DE FOE. in
such as: 'while this was being done' etc.; and I remember 1847.
being quite angry with a good idiomatic vulgar writer when &* 62.
I saw in his page the words 'while the straw was being
moved.' I suppose you have read The Adventures of a
Cavalier; The Adventiires of Captain Carleton, and The Life
of Mother Ross. The first gives you the best account of the
Civil wars of the reign of Charles the First I ever read ;
the second gives the only good account of Peterborough's
romantic campaigns in Spain that is to be found in our
language ; and the last, though too vulgar for an unmarried
lady to read, gives us a most animated picture of the camp-
followers and low scenes attending the great Marlborough's
victories. These, I am almost ashamed to say, were new to
me. In his homely descriptions he shoots far ahead of Sir
Walter Scott, and he is infinitely more true to real history ;
for in these historical romances he narrates the leading facts
with perfect truth, and then decks them out with minute and
domestic incidents so like truth that one is almost constrained
to believe them true. I have also read one or two of his
political pamphlets ; and they are as clever, and as natural,
and yet as unlike anything ever written by any one else, as
his romances. The two pamphlets for which he was twice
sent to Newgate are both admirable ; and looking at the
events of the day from a distance I am astonished at the
folly as well as the wickedness of those who punished him.
But he was a dissenter, and that was enough for the poli-
ticians of the day, who were French-ridden in taste, vulgar
in sentiment, narrow-minded, sceptical, and intolerant. I
think he was a firm believer, and on the whole a good
practical Christian. Yet 'tis very hard to believe that he
could think all his novels had a moral tendency. We must,
however, remember the change of times and manners. But
halt, my friend ! If we go on at this rate we shall get through
this sheet before I have done even with the eighteen volumes
of De Foe. My pen has been running as my nose did while
my influenza was at the very worst...
ii2 MR HARE'S NOTE ON LUTHER.
1847. During this melancholy vacation I have been very solitary.
JEt. 62. The college has been empty, so that for days together, I have
seen no faces but my own ugly withered face reflected from
my looking-glass while I was a-shaving, and the ugly face of
old Mrs Eaton, who is about as old as I am, and had, I suspect,
no great stock of charms to begin the world with. As for my
man John, he has been worse than myself, poor fellow ; and
I have not seen his face in Trinity College for weeks. About
a fortnight since I became much better, and my stomach
required something more stimulating. So I took to a course
of polemical theology. During this fit I read Note W^
You know the author well, and truly did I relish both himself
and his long quotations.... Indeed, my dear Hare, deeply do
I thank you for this admirable note, and it was sent forth in
the hour of need, when good and sound men who ought to
have known better, mincing dilettantes, and rabid reviewers,
had joined in open-mouthed cry against the greatest and best
man who has lived since the days of the first Apostles. This
is my honest opinion. I like Luther's homely style (I speak
only of his Latin) far better than I expected. It is not, nor
does it profess to be, Ciceronian ; but it is strong, masculine,
and clear, and tells us just what we want to know. One
never doubts his meaning for an instant. He was a man,
and not an angel. I wish he had been less coarse. In more
than half his disputes with Zuingle he was either wrong-
headed or wrong. I do not like his stiff-neckedness soon
after the Augsburg diet ; and I think he put the infant
protestant cause in the utmost peril. But he acted on
principle ; and I think Ranke well says, on some such
occasion, that if his conduct was not prudent, it was great.
********
During my confinement, I took to polemics as one does
to cayenne pepper, by way of seasoning to the light matter
1 The Mission of the Comforter and other Sermons, -with notes ; by Julius
Charles Hare, was first published in 1846, in two volumes 8vo. In this edition
Note W. (ii. pp. 696878) contained the vindication of the character of Luther
afterwards published as a separate work.
RANK PS HISTORY. 113
I had been gorging. I read Cureton's edition of the Epistles 1847.
of St Ignatius^ with very great pleasure ; and his prefatory ^t. 62.
matter is, I think, excellent of its kind. Then I looked at
the right orthodox and pompous review of Dr Wordsworth 2 .
What a pity he should spoil his good scholarship by his
mouthiness and hyperorthodoxy ! Cureton, in his reply 3 , has,
I think, laid the Doctor sprawling in the mire. Dr Lee has
also come out to do battle on the same side ; but he is not a
clear writer, and though he gives hard hits they are not well
planted. But he has not yet done. To improve my orthodoxy
I read at the same time two volumes of Gibbon, and I picked
out again all he has to say on the early controversies and
councils. What a miserable picture that history gives us of
the Church of Christ after the Nicene Council !
********
You see by this long story that I have been industriously
idle during my long and gloomy confinement. I have to
thank the author of Note W. for setting me on Ranke's
History of the German Reformation. I have carefully read
the three volumes of Mrs Austin's translation. What a glorious
history ! how full, how rich, how wise, how honest ! I shall
never again endure the rounded periods and syllabub of
Robertson. I seemed to be in a voyage through a new
world of mind and matter as I went along, and I hardly
allowed myself time for sleep till I had finished the three
volumes
There ! I think by this time we must all have done
breakfast, and in half an hour I must pack up my things
and return to Cambridge from Hurstmonceaux, after my
short but pleasant visit. In a day or two I hope to revisit
my Museum. I have half a dozen great boxes to unpack,
and I have an excellent naturalist hard at work arranging my
1 The Antient Syriac Version of the Epistles of Saint Ignatius. By William
Cureton, M.A. 8vo. Lond. 1845.
2 An article in The English Review for December, 1845 (Vol. iv. pp. 309
353)' by Chr. Wordsworth, D.D., afterwards Bishop of Lincoln.
3 VindicicE Ignatiance. By Rev. W. Cureton, 8vo. Lond. 1846.
S. II. 8
114 CANON WODEHOUSE
1847. organic remains. He is to remain a year with me, and before
Et. 62. h e has d on e I trust my Museum will be fair to look upon....
Give my kindest regards to your other and better half,
and believe me your affectionate friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
Mrs Eaton and her husband, referred to in the above
letter, were Sedgwick's college servants for many years. It
was their son whose letters from the field of Aliwal interested
him so much. Mrs Eaton is said to have been the heroine of
the celebrated episode of the pound of tea. Her master,
observing that his teacaddy emptied itself with inconceivable
rapidity, bought a pound secretly, locked it in a drawer and
filled his teapot from it. When the usual period for ordering
a fresh supply came round, Mrs Eaton displayed the empty
caddy, whereupon Sedgwick opened his drawer and ex-
hibiting his packet still half-filled, exclaimed triumphantly :
" Bless me ! my pound has lasted longer than yours ! "
Sunday Morning, February 7, 1847.
My dear Wodehouse,
I have just returned from a walk to the bottom of
our bowling-green I hope to dine in Hall and to-morrow
(should the weather-cock still point west) I mean to ride my
horse ; so you see I am now advancing, and I trust I shall have
no back-reckonings. So much for myself....
I advise you to take the Archdeaconry 1 by all means.
There are no duties of the office you may not do with a
good conscience ; and you will do them, if God spare your
life, with a good conscience. The office may enable you to
do the cause of honest scriptural truth much good and your
peculiar views about certain unfortunate passages in our
Liturgy (in which I agree with you entirely) will not, and
1 The Archdeaconry of Norfolk, offered by Bishop Stanley. The proposal to
appoint a clergyman known to object to certain passages in the Prayer Book (see
above, p. 20) aroused great opposition among the clergy. The Bishop was
determined to persevere in his course, when "a legal difficulty was discovered,
which practically precluded him from offering the Archdeaconry to any incumbent
in his diocese." Addresses and Charges of Edward Stanley, D.D., p. 65.
AND THE ARCHDEACONRY OF NORFOLK. 115
ought not to, interfere with your proper and energetic Archi- 1847.
diaconal duties. Let not good Evangelical men flinch, and Mi - 6
refuse office. Now is the time for them to take the front rank,
that the ultra high-church have gone over to the enemy.
Julius Hare has some views like your own. He is a low*
churchman according to the vulgar abuse of words. I should
call him and you very high churchmen men who are not
content to bathe in tainted streams, but wish to steep
themselves, soul and body, in the pure waters of life gushing
from the fountain-head. Ordinances of men are, or may be,
good things in their way ; and they are necessary for diffusion
of the waters of life, and for irrigation all this is plain to
common sense. Hare had some scruples, and stated them to
his Bishop (Otter). The Bishop replied 'I can allow these
objections to be of no weight, for my opinions on these points
are just the same as your own. Therefore I again offer you
the office and I hope you will take it.' Now this is your
exact position, if I mistake not. Act like Julius Hare, and
take the office. So now you have my opinion, and I hope all
your objections will at once kick the beam....
To-morrow I must seek sermons in stones and go to my
Museum, which I am putting in its last arrangement, so far,
at least, as my own labours are concerned with it. I wish this
work were over, and then I would emancipate myself from
Geology, and set my house in order for the evening of life.
Such are my day-dreams. Perhaps I may come over some
Saturday, so as to return on Monday to my work. I want
to have a peep at Norwich again. My nephew 1 is coming
into the rooms opposite mine and in the same staircase. He
is well and working hard : but his general health is not quite
good, and he has the family failing of a weak stomach a
stomach desirous of doing work, but not doing it well. For
hard Cambridge grinding, a good gizzard is next thing to a
good brain ; and were I a materialist (which I am not) I
1 Richard Sedgwick, son of the Rev. John Sedgwick, Vicar of Dent. He had
matriculated 'as a pensioner of Trinity College in November, 1846.
82
n6 CRITICISM OF STANLEY'S SERMONS.
1847. should say that the seat of the will was in the stomach, as
M\.. 62. ti^ seat O f benevolence is said to be in the bowels.
What wonderful days we live in ! Parsons by the dozen
turning blind Papists ; honest Canons spiking their touch-
holes, and crying Nolo Archidiaconari at the time they ought
to be going off with a crack ; men and women talking to one
another at 100 miles distance by galvanized wires ; Old
England lighted with burning air ; the land cut through by
rails till it becomes a great gridiron ; men and women doing
every day what was once thought no better than a crazed
dream, doubling up space and time and putting them in their
side-pockets; new planets found as thick as peas; nerves
laughed at, and pain driven out of the operating-room ; some
sleeping comfortably, some cutting jokes while you are
lithotomizing them or chopping off their limbs (this I have
not seen, but D.V. I hope to see it soon) in short 'tis a strange
time we live in ! But is there no reverse to this picture ?
Yes ! a sad and sorrowful reverse ! our friends are dying
around us ; famine is stalking round the land ; peace is but a
calm before a tempest ; sin and misery are doing their work of
mischief; by God's judgment, the same kind of disease which
has destroyed the daily bread of our Irish brethren, may, for
aught we can tell, next year consume our daily bread by
attacking the grain on which we live. And then what becomes
of art and science and civilisation ? Gold will not feed us ; the
heart of man will not beat by steam ; but I will not dream of
coming evil, I will hope for the best ; and I do trust that there
are good men yet in our land to make it an object of continued
blessings, and that through us these blessings may be diffused
to the farthest corners of the earth. . . .
Ever, my dear Wodehouse, affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
Among other books read by Sedgwick during this long
seclusion was Arthur Stanley's Sermons and Essays on the
Apostolical Age. Affection for the author, as much as interest
STANLEY'S THANKS. 117
on the subject, no'doubt determined the care he bestowed upon 1847.
it. The result was recorded in a long and detailed criticism, &* 62
forwarded, as soon as written, to the Palace at Norwich.
"I have looked at your Commentary," wrote Miss Stanley,
" and seen many a gentle slap which will do the Author good
for years to come ; in his name let me thank you, for I know
he will be grateful to you, if it was only that you should have
thought it worth your while to spend 'a hard day's work'
upon it 1 ." The author's own sentiments are recorded in the
following letter :
from Rev. A. P. Stanley.
PALACE, NORWICH, qth August ', 1848.
My dear Professor,
Better late than never, but certainly better after having
carefully used them than before having read them, I return my most
cordial thanks for your long MS. notes on my Sermons. For the
last few days, at such odd times as I could command, I have been
at my book on one side the table, and Mary reading your notes on
the other side ; and now that they are finished, and their results duly
recorded in the margin of the Sermons, the first duty as well as
pleasure of the Author is to express to the Critic how much he and
his book are indebted for the kindness and care with which it has
been read, and for the instruction and he must not forget adding
the amusement which the Commentary has furnished.
All the remarks have been well attended to most of them have
been followed as you would see if you were to glance over the
corrected copy. For one huge mass of corrigenda that of the mis-
references, I have no excuse to oifer nothing but apologies and
the ignorance of a young author who relied too much on the
sagacity of the printer. I trust that these are now all rectified.
The metaphors and the sentences which you have so successfully
pulled to pieces, have most of them had their limbs reset, and are
now set on their legs again. Some few were found to be incurable.
The graver matters of censure have all been retouched; and alto-
gether, if the Author is ever able to present you with a Second Edition,
I trust that it will cost you less trouble, and give you fewer
shocks, than the first. The only point, I think, where I have .
entirely resisted your solicitations is in the refusal to go at length
into any new matter. Once more accept my hearty thanks for this
real boon the greatest boon that an author can have the criticism
of a Reviewer who is kind enough to read, and critical enough to
censure, and sagacious enough to improve, all that he has written.
All this benefit has been turned to account at this particular
moment, not because I expect a Second Edition, but because I hope
1 From Miss Stanley, 15 February, 1848.
ii8 McCOTS WORK AT CAMBRIDGE.
1847. to go to Jerusalem in November, and wished to wipe off old scores
E t . 6 2 . at home. Have you any commissions to the rocks of Mount Sinai,
or Moriah, or Carmel? Seriously, any suggestions which you can
give me about those parts will be most thankfully received.
Ever yours truly
A. P. STANLEY.
The arrangement of the geological collections, alluded to
in two of the last letters, had now made considerable progress.
The vast accumulation of material, due in great measure to
Sedgwick's own energy as a collector during twenty years
of hard work, had been unpacked, sorted, and to some extent
arranged. This task was commenced, as already noted, by
Mr Ansted, under Sedgwick's direction, and their joint labours
brought the collection " into approximate order." He was
succeeded by Mr Salter, the young geologist who had accom-
panied Sedgwick to Wales in 1842 and 1843; but, before
long, he was drawn away from Cambridge by an appoint-
ment on the Geological Survey of England. Sedgwick next
secured the services of Mr Frederick McCoy a naturalist
who had already performed similar duties in Dublin. He
came to Cambridge in 1846, and for at least four years
devoted himself " uninterruptedly and with unflinching zeal "
to the determination and arrangement of " the whole series of
British and Foreign Fossils " in the Museum. The value of
his work is known to the world by numerous scientific papers,
and by the Description of the British Palceozoic Fossils in the
Geological Museum of the University of Cambridge, first
issued in parts, and finally published in a complete form,
with a valuable preface by Sedgwick, in 1855*
McCoy's energy soon produced visible effects. In a year's
time Sedgwick could write : " My Museum is coming out
gloriously. It will soon be the most instructive and useful
Museum in England, thanks mainly to McCoy's enormous
labours. He works like a Turk" 1 . No wonder that he looked
on these collections with parental pride, and watched McCoy's
work upon them much as a father watches the education
1 To R. L. Murchison, 5 February, 1848.
PRINCE ALBERT ELECTED CHANCELLOR. 119
of his children. His energy and influence had brought them 1847.
together ; his liberality was now providing for their arrange- ^- 62
ment The cost of this fell almost entirely upon Sedgwick.
Dr Woodward's trustees made two small grants to Mr
Ansted, and 100 to Mr McCoy during his first year of
office ; but the surplus in their hands had been exhausted by
defraying the cost of the fittings for the new building, and it
was intimated to Sedgwick that no further grants could be
expected from that source. He had already paid Mr Salter's
salary ; and during the whole of Mr McCoy's residence in
Cambridge he regularly paid him 200 a year out of his
private income 1 .
At the beginning of February in this year the University
was startled by the news of the sudden death of the Chancellor,
the Duke of Northumberland. Dr Whewell happened to be
in London, so that the conduct of affairs in Trinity College
devolved to a considerable extent on Sedgwick. It at once
occurred to him that Prince Albert should be invited to accept
the vacant office; and it is probable that this expression of
opinion on his part did much to influence the conduct of the
other resident Fellows, who, as a general rule, supported the
Prince. At the same time neither residents nor non-residents
were unanimous ; and though Sedgwick espoused the Prince's
cause with hearty conviction, he was obliged, as Vice-Master,
to observe, to some degree, an official neutrality. He appears
to have discharged his public duties with admirable judgment.
On the first day of polling (25 February), there was of course
a large party in hall. Sedgwick, Mr Romilly tells us, " spoke
excellently, and in a kind way for both sides. We were too
large a party (above 240) to go upstairs [to the Combination
Room]. He gave the non-resident voters, and Earl Nelson,
London chairman of Earl Powis' Committee, returned thanks.
He proposed Sedgwick's health, which was received with
great applause. Sedgwick made an excellent answer." On
1 Report of Cambridge University Commission 1852, Evidence, p. 118. Letter
from Dr Philpott, Vice-Chancellor, 4 December, 1846.
120 MADE CHANCELLORS SECRETARY.
1847. the following day he again presided, and " spoke briefly and
t. 62. we n ." anc i on the third day, when the result of the poll had
been declared, he made a speech in the Combination Room,
and presided for an hour after the departure of the Master.
This exciting contest was the beginning of a closer
connexion between Sedgwick and the Prince, who soon after
the election invited him to " undertake the duties of his
Secretary at Cambridge, as Chancellor of the University " *
a proposal which was accepted without a moment's hesitation.
Those who are jealous of Sedgwick's scientific reputation
will regret this decision. It entailed upon him new duties and
new responsibilities, of the extent of which he had no idea
when he accepted the Prince's offer and it put geology,
viewed as the serious pursuit of his life, still farther into the
background. On the other hand, it was hardly to be expected
that he would decline. He was animated by a chivalrous
loyalty to the throne and the person of the Queen ; and it
gave him infinite pleasure, in the evening of his life, to feel
that he could in any way make himself of use to her husband.
He performed his duties zealously, but without either subser-
viency or affectation ; and in all his relations with the Court he
maintained the same simplicity of manner, and the same plain-
ness of speech, by which his whole life had been distinguished.
To Miss Fanny Hicks. CAMBRIDGE, March 4 //*, 1847.
"...If you ask me what I am doing I reply that I am
grumbling that I have a geological paper in the press 2 , for I
sent the MS. up to Town yesterday for the printer, and that
I am preparing a new edition of my Discourse on the studies
of Cambridge, with additional notes and corrections &c. (I
worked five hours at it last night before I retired to roost)
1 From Colonel Phipps, 6 April, 1847. It is usual for the Chancellor to
select some distinguished resident Member of the Senate, to keep him informed of
what is going forward, to answer questions arising out of his correspondence, and
occasionally to write letters in his name.
2 The paper on The Classification of the Fossiliferous Slates of North Wales,
read 16 December, 1846; a supplement to the paper read 12 March, 1845
(see above, p. 80).
DEATH OF MR CLARK SON. 121
and that I am butchered by letter writing. We chanted 1847.
the paean of victory on Saturday. Early on Sunday morning ^- ^
I drove over to Great Barford near Bedford to take leave of
Mr Clarkson 1 , one of my oldest and best friends, who is on
his death-bed. It was indeed a change from a house of
feasting to a house of mourning, and I felt in my heart that
the latter was better for me than the former. Mr Clarkson
has been a consistent and pious man, and fears not death,
because he knows in whom he trusts in his hour of trial. His
wife is one of the sweetest and wisest and purest women I
ever have had the happiness of knowing. She is a pattern of
Christian patience, and shews by her whole bearing what it
is to be a Christian in our times of greatest bereavement "
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
YORK HOUSE, BATH,
Easter Tuesday, [6 April}, 1847.
"...I came to this place last Saturday evening. After the
influenza left me I fell into low languid spirits. My old enemy
rheumatic gout then began to burrow among my limbs and
took away my sleep. So I resolved (under medical advice)
to try these waters, and give myself rest and exercise in the
open air. Rest and exercise mean the same thing with me
Pray write soon, and fill a long letter with all manner of
fireside news. How are the poor people ? How are your
schools going on ? How flourish the infant schools ? What
are you reading ? How goes on German ? What music are
you labouring at ?
I wish Tate's Continuous Life of St Paul' 2 ' were more
pleasantly written, but it is excellent notwithstanding. I
should wish you to master it, so as to have a clear view of
St Paul's life and labours in true historical order, and it would
be a good exercise to read his Epistles through once every
1 Rev. John Clarkson, B.A. 1805, afterwards Fellow of Trinity College.
2 The Horce Paulines of William Paley D.D. carried out and illustrated in a
continuous history of the Apostolic Labours and Writings of St Paul. By James
Tate, M.A. 8vo. Lond. 1840.
122 LIFE OF SIMEON.
1847. year in true historical order and continuously, ever bearing
t. 62. j n mind that the Epistles, though in a certain view historical,
are also devotional and doctrinal ; and though drawn forth by
local occasions, contain truths for all ages and all occasions,
and can neither be felt nor understood unless read in a
devotional spirit
I have been interrupted nearly two hours, very pleasantly,
by Mr Wordsworth. I hope to spend the greater part of
to-morrow morning in his company.
I must off to the bath-house. So good morning.,.."
To Canon Wodehouse.
YORK HOUSE, BATH, April 9, 1847.
"...Since I reached Bath I have finished Cams' Life of
Simeon}- It is a very remarkable book, and likely to do
much good. 'Tis the history of a devout and faithful man,
who stuck to his principles through evil report and good report,
and ended by gaining the love and good-will of all men about
him. Pray read it soon. There are in it several letters on
cases of conscience not very different from your own. Most
of good old Simeon's views are wise and sound. And what a
consistent man he was after he was called to the ministry !
He never flinched. He had many small faults, but he knew
them, and was humble under them, and after all they were
motes in the beam of light, which only serve to show the
track of the light more plainly to the senses. What a grand
Christian death ! And what a fine, eloquent, and Christian
summary by the Bishop of Calcutta! 2 ..."
During the whole of the Easter term of 1847 tne
University was occupied with preparations for the Public
Commencement, at which the new Chancellor was to
preside, in the presence of the Queen. It was not long
before Sedgwick had to enter upon his duties as secre-
1 Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Charles Simeon, M.A. Edited by the Rev.
W. Carus, M.A. 8vo. Lond. 1847.
2 Recollections of the Rev. Charles Simeon, by the Right Rev. Daniel Wilson,
D.D. Lord Bishop of Calcutta, dated " Calcutta, 1837," appended to the Memoirs.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT OXFORD. 123
tary. Early in May we find him attending the Prince in 1847.
London ; discussing details of the ceremony ; writing letters &* 6
about honorary degrees and the like. The result of these
preliminary labours is described in the next letter.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
July 12, 1847.
" I have lost all reckoning, and I know not how long it
is since I last wrote to you. From Oxford I ordered papers
to be forwarded to Dent, so you will have seen an account
of all our doings there. The meeting went off admirably ;
but I remained only till Monday evening (the 28th) as I
thought I might be wanted at Cambridge. One day, the
Grand Duke of Saxe Weimar and Prince Albert came over,
and went round to the different sections. I was obliged to go
in their suite, as the Prince's Secretary ; and a very pleasant
break it was in the hard work of the meeting, as it enabled
me to witness the Prince's reception, to visit all the different
section-rooms, and to partake of a magnificent lunch given
by the Master of Exeter College to the Royal Party, and to
about 1 50 Members of the Association who came by cards of
invitation. Every one was in high spirits ; and this Royal
visit, without interrupting any work, gave an eclat to the
meeting. They really were in great luck. The weather was
glorious and not too hot ; and Oxford (I will show it you
someday) looked magnificent. When the Royal visitors
entered the Physical and Mathematical Section, the great
French mathematician Le Verrier was on his legs discussing
the orbit of a comet. When he sat down, Airy, Challis,
Herschel, Adams, Sir W. Hamilton, and Sir David Brewster
took part in a short discussion. In all Europe it would not
have been possible to bring greater astronomical names
together. This was not got up but mere accident, for they
took their chance, and interrupted no business. In the
geological section they were also in great luck. A Swedish
nobleman was exhibiting some physical maps of Scandinavia,
124 SJX HARRY SMITH AT WHITTLESEA.
1847. and a Danish Professor was expounding his views about the
Et. 62. changes of sea-level all along the Danish and Swedish coasts,
manifested by deposits of modern sea-shells at different levels
on the cliffs. This was followed by a short discussion, in
which several of us took a part
Well ! on Monday evening about eight I left Oxford, and
arrived in London in two hours by the train. Early on
Tuesday the 2Qth I ran down to Cambridge, and began my
work in my Museum, putting everything in order for the
reception of the Installation company. Next day (the 3Oth)
I meant to employ in the same manner, but I was called away
by the Dean of Ely to meet my old friend Sir Harry Smith.
I could not resist the temptation. So next morning (the 3Oth)
I went to the station, and there I met the hero and his family
party, and joined them in a saloon fitted up by the directors
for their special reception. The entry into Ely was triumphant.
Thousands were assembled, with flags, branches of laurel, and
joyful, anxious faces. The Dean had provided me a horse,
so I joined the cavalcade. After going through triumphal
arches, and I know not what, preceded by a regimental band
of music Sir Harry mounted on the Arabian charger he rode
at the battle of Aliwal, and greeted by lusty shouts from
thousands we all turned in to a magnificent lunch. We
then went on to Whittlesea a similar triumphant entry I
should think not less than 10,000 men to greet the arrival
of the hero at his native town. He was much affected, and
I saw tears roll down his weather-beaten, but fine, face, as
he passed the house where his father and mother once lived.
I roosted with James Ainger, and the next day (July i)
we had a most hearty dinner in honour of Sir Harry, at
which more than 300 sat down. I was glad to see Whittlesea
once again under such joyful circumstances On the follow-
ing day (July 2) I returned to Cambridge; and did hope to
have two quiet days before the Installation ; but the evening
post summoned the Vice-Chancellor and myself to London to
have a long talk with the Prince about matters of Academic
PRINCE ALBERT AT CAMBRIDGE. 125
form degrees etc. etc. So we went up early on Saturday, and 1847.
were several hours in Buckingham Palace talking over the Mi '
business of the Installation. During the morning I had eight
letters to write, so I really was acting at length as Secretary
to the Chancellor. I told him Sir Harry Smith was coming
on Tuesday. He said that the Queen would wish him to be
there on Monday, to take an honorary degree. So I fired
a shot to Whittlesea, not doubting that I should bring the
hero down in time ; for the Queen's wishes are, you know, a
soldier's law. I returned to Cambridge late on Saturday. On
Sunday about 5 a,m. I crept to my Museum to see that my
orders had been executed in my absence. Better day better
deed ! there was no help for it. I then rested, for I was half
dead with fatigue. The churches were crowded to suffocation.
After evening Chapel I was rejoiced to find Sir H. Smith
waiting at my rooms ; he took my bed, and I took Dick's.
My inner room was cut off (as at the former Royal visit), and
became the Queen's wardrobe. This was inconvenient to
me ; but there was no help for it. I spent a delightful quiet
evening with my hearty and gallant friend. We took a turn
in the walks, but he was in plain clothes, and was not known
by the multitude.
Next day (Monday the 5th) began the great hurly-burly.
Everything went off well. On Monday John told me that
more than 100 people came to lunch at my rooms, no doubt
partly drawn there in the hope of meeting Harry Smith, who,
(after the Duke of Wellington), was the most popular of all
the visitors. I could not be there myself, except at very short
intervals, as I was officially in constant attendance on the
Prince. This gave me an excellent place in the Senate House,
where my post was just behind him. The raised platform
was crowded, but in the area of the Senate House the M.A.'s
were literally almost squeezed to death. There was a grand
cheer on Monday morning when Sir H. Smith had his degree.
After the honorary degrees were over the Chancellor went to
visit several colleges, and he told me that in all these visits I
126 PRINCE ALBERT AT CAMBRIDGE
1847. must go with him as his official attendant So I found myself
Et. 62. before long in an open carriage with the Prince, and the Duke
of Wellington sitting opposite. This was a rather novel
position, but I found it quite comfortable. The Vice-Chan-
cellor that day had a dinner; the Queen attended to a party
of about 60. I presided in Trin. Coll. Hall over a party of
more than 300 ; and a right merry party it was. Sir Harry
Smith was at my right hand, as the Vice-Master's guest ; and
I think 20 noblemen were present ; and among the distin-
guished foreigners were Le Verrier and Struve, whose names
you must have heard. If we had not so much dignity as the
Vice-Chancellor, we had more numbers and more fun. In the
evening a concert. The Queen attended, almost covered with
. diamonds. The Senate House was not by any means so full
as in the morning. Concert over, a pleasant talk in my own
rooms, where I found Le Verrier, Struve 1 , and Sir Roderick
Murchison 2 all smoking cigars.
On Tuesday (see the papers) we had the Installation ode
performed in full chorus, and of all the cheers I ever heard,
the cheers after God save the Queen in full chorus accompanied
and joined by a thousand voices, were the most enthusiastic.
Le Verrier was quite overcome, and went out and wept. I
saw him just after, and he said he was ashamed of himself,
but he could not resist so noble an enthusiasm: "j'ai pleure
1 Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, director of the observatory at Pulkowa,
near St Petersburgh.
2 Murchison had become a member of Trinity College, probably through
Sedgwick's influence, and had been admitted to the honorary degree of Master of
Arts. On getting home he wrote to Sedgwick a characteristic letter: "I fled
without shaking you by the hand and taking leave : but I cannot embark for the
continent without thanking you from the bottom of my heart for your kind and
friendly reception at our College of Trinity. Little did I think when I first began
to hammer rocks with you, that I should one day be admitted by the Prince
Consort your Chancellor, as one of the noble College of Trinity, in which you
have been so long beloved. Nothing, I assure you, has given me greater
satisfaction than the glorious days I have just passed with you, enhanced as the
pleasure has been by being admitted in company with the gallant and able soldier
Sir Harry Smith, your old chum. ...I think that like myself you wear best under
excitement, for I rejoiced to see how well you looked at Cambridge."
PRINCE ALBERT AT CAMBRIDGE. 127
comme un enfant" After we left the Senate House, the 1847.
Prince again went round to some of the colleges accompanied ^t- 6
by his Secretary a handsome young man of your acquain-
tance, is he not ? The dinner in our Hall was splendid. As
Vice-Master, I had to sit at the Queen's table, but the
paper puts me at the wrong end, and the persons are not
in right order. Of course the Master was in the centre
the Queen on his right and the Prince on his left. I sat
at one end, in my usual seat ; on my right were the Duke
of Wellington and Lady Hardwicke, on my left Lord
Fortescue and the Marchioness of Exeter. So I think
your uncle had no reason to complain of his company.
After dinner there was a drawing-room. After being pre-
sented the Prince's Equerry told me I must not go out,
but remain as one of the Prince's suite. I ought to have
known this before ; but I continually wanted drilling. When
all was over I had the honour of a short conversation with
the Queen. She told me that she was delighted with her
reception, and wished to express herself in the strongest
terms. I told her that the value of our cheers was this :
that they were given in all loyalty, and with the whole heart.
Wednesday was our great public breakfast, attended I
think, by more than 4000 persons. The Queen went away
early, but the dancing was continued to a pretty late hour.
A few drops of rain fell about the time of the Queen's
departure, but the evening was glorious. There was an
enormous tent erected in St John's walks for the dancers.
It was more than 300 feet long. The breakfast was in our
cloisters, and a bridge connected the Trinity and St John's
walks. I saw Fanny Hicks dancing away right merrily. Next
morning (Thursday) the Corporation brought an address to
Sir Harry Smith, to which he read them an answer. Soon
afterwards he went away. I then went round the colleges with
Dr and Mrs Buckland and their daughter, and dined with Mr
Hopkins, where I again met the same party. On Friday I
was fairly done; hardly able to drag one foot after another...."
128 RECOLLECTIONS OF HYDE HALL.
^847- To Miss Kate Malcolm. DNT near
My dear Kate, OcMer ' 5 *> l847 '
Your long kind letter reached me at Norwich
in the latter part of September. I wished to answer it
at the moment of its welcome appearance, but my house was
full of company, and I had no leisure ; and the moment
my residence was over 1 had to run to Cambridge to take
part in the Fellowship Examination. That troublesome
business over (and it nearly put out my eyes) I ran down
to this place where I first saw the light. Two days I have
devoted to the genius of Indolence the third I am giving
to those whom I love, and who are far away. My dear
friend Kate must surely be of the number. Thanks for
your picture ; accept my heartfelt congratulations on your
restoration to health and joyous looks. May God long
make you healthy, happy, and the joy of your friends !
The little drawing must be a good likeness, and assuredly
it brings into my mind's eye the image of a merry, skipping,
blue-eyed child with clustering locks, whom I first saw in
the drawing-room of Hyde Hall 1 . Your letter I read with
great interest ; and while I read it I fancied that I saw
you all, and heard you all, and that I was living with you ;
so let me thank you for it, and ask you to write again
very soon to tell me all about the reforming- Pope all
about Lady Malcolm and your sisters common fireside
gossip the more the better how many Cardinals have
made love to your sister Olympia whether she is to convert
the Cardinals, or the Cardinals are to convert her etc. etc.
etc. All these things I ask you to tell me, and to send
your answer to Cambridge ; for to my den in Trinity
College I hope to return before many days are over, and
then to begin my annual course of lectures, and to be once
more a kind of College fixture. So now I must write
about myself, as in truth I have little else to write about.
1 See above, Vol. I., p. 283.
LIFE AT NORWICH. 129
During three months of winter I was almost confined 1847.
to my fireside (and part of the time to my bedroom) by ^ 6
an attack of influenza. As soon as the influenza left me
the rheumatic gout took its place; so I went and tried to
boil the fiend out of my bones in the hot springs of Bath,
where I remained during the month of April. The treatment
did me some good, and in May I was much better ; but
before the end of that month my nephew 1 became very
dangerously ill. For better air I removed his bed to my
dining-room ; his mother came to nurse him and had
also a bed in my College chambers, which were thus
converted into a hospital. I had, however, the happiness
of seeing my nephew recover; and during a part of the
month of June I accompanied them to the seaside, where
the recovery of poor Dick became almost complete 2 ... Before
the end of July I was obliged to take up my Residence at
Norwich to meet the Archaeological Institute, who this year
held their annual week's meeting at that city. On the first
of August began my cathedral duties, and lasted two months.
I had two nieces with me merry lasses and good horse-
women, and we were excellently mounted. In addition to the
daily cathedral services I this year undertook the chaplaincy
of the County Hospital for the two months of my Residence.
They have prayers twice a week, and prayers and a sermon
on Sundays ; so that on Sundays I had to attend three full
services. In short I became one of the working clergy. How
much I should delight to see you scampering with my niece
over the heaths of Norfolk, and now and then turning round
to laugh at my clumsy horsemanship. When are you to pay
me your promised visit ? We had Jenny Lind at Norwich
about the end of my Residence. She drove us all mad at
least sober unmusical people thought so. But we thought
ourselves quite in our senses, though we were led by the ears.
1 Richard Sedgwick, son of Rev. John Sedgwick, had been admitted a
pensioner of Trinity College, in October, 1846 (see above, p. 115).
2 The omitted passage contains an account of the Public Commencement.
S. II. Q
130 VISIT TO DENT.
1847. The singing Jenny was an inmate of the Palace, and is a
Et. 62. m0 st charming and interesting person in private life, and of
most spotless purity of conduct, spite of the atmosphere in
which she has lived. You know not my friends and relations
here. You know not my niece Isabella, who is to me as a
daughter. You know not Zoe* (the daughter of Hong-soo,
perhaps I don't spell his name right) who is the picture of
her mother, and quite as wild. Said Zoe was born at the
kennel of Windsor Castle and now lives here. She shakes her
tail, and sends her love to you, and I send mine to Lady
Malcolm, your sister, and yourself.
Affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
CAMBRIDGE, October 30^, 1847.
"...I had a quiet visit at Dent, and was very happy there.
I preached four times extempore, having no sermons with
me no 'dried tongues,' as old Rowland Hill used to call
them. On Monday I left Dent. I saw the Cumberland
hills white with snow as I posted over the hills between
Dent and Kendal. At a quarter past two I entered the
express train, and at twenty minutes before eleven I was
safely set down at Euston Square ! What a charming change
since I was an undergraduate, when I used to be two nights
out on my way from home to Cambridge...."
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, October 27 th, 1847.
"...Alas ! forty-three long years are gone since I came up
a freshman. Would that I could show more fruit for so long a
trust ! I seem to myself to have led a useless life, and I am
certain that I have not been a good economist of my own
happiness. But I am never in good spirits for a day or two
after my return to College. Tis after all but a cold home.
1 A Chinese dog given to Sedgwick by Miss Malcolm's brother.
PETITION AGAINST JEWS IN PARLIAMENT. 131
And my health is now not equal to my daily academic tasks, 1847.
for I never entirely shake off the miserable gouty symptoms. ^ 6
On Monday my lectures are, I hope, to begin ; and I am to
give them five days a week. On the whole the excitement
of them does me good...."
In November of this year a petition against the admission
of Jews to Parliament was offered to the Senate. Sedgwick
gave the first non-placet in one of the two houses into which
the Senate was then divided, Dr Lamb in the other. Their
efforts, however, were unsuccessful. The Grace to affix the
University Seal to the petition was carried by fifty votes
to twenty-five in the former, and by twenty-eight to fourteen
in the latter.
Early in December Sedgwick was honoured by the Queen
with an invitation to visit her at Osborne. "The Prince,"
wrote Colonel Phipps, "thinks a little change of air will do
you good ; " and it was further intimated that advice on the
chances of obtaining good water by boring an artesian well
would be acceptable.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
OSBORNE, ISLE OF WIGHT,
Tuesday, December 14^, 1847.
My dear Isabella,
I doubt not you will be glad to hear how I am
passing my time in the Queen's country-house ; and therefore
I will begin from the hour of my arrival here. I have not
yet seen either Her Majesty or the Prince; but in about
two hours I am to join the small family party at dinner.
Meanwhile, I will begin my little journal. At eleven this
morning we that is I and my servant John started from
the London terminus of the Southampton line ; and in less
than three hours were at Gosport. The day was charming;
and, spite of the absent leaves, the view down the channel,
as we approached Portsmouth, was delightful. A boat
was waiting to convey us to the Queen's beautiful steamer
92
132 VISITS THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE.
1847. the Fairy, and in a few minutes more we were on our
i. 62. wav across the channel to Osborne. I found Colonel
Phipps and Colonel Grey (both of whom I knew before)
waiting for us at the landing-place under the park. There
were also carriages waiting. John went in one of them
to look after the baggage. I walked to the house with
the two Colonels ; and we were soon after joined by General
Bowles. The sun was going down gloriously, and the sky
was beautiful. After eating some lunch in General Bowies'
room, I took a stroll by moonlight. The Queen only
purchased Osborne a few years since, and since then has
made great improvements. Two very large square buildings
are already nearly finished ; and they are to be connected
by a kind of covered cloister. One of them is backed by a
lofty tower bearing the royal standard ; and near this tower
appear to be the state apartments. The old house is still
standing, but is to come down so soon as the second great
square building is finished for company. I have myself an
excellent room in the old building. When the house is
finished it will cut a regal figure ; but at present it is in a
very chaotic state, though the state-rooms are in excellent
order, at least so I am informed. On entering the house I
was amused at seeing carts, toys, and other signs of young
children, scattered about the hall in considerable confusion.
Human nature is the same in whatever rank, and with what-
ever garb it may be covered. So far as I have seen, every
thing here has a peaceful, happy, domestic look. There ! I
have actually written three pages and a half about nothing.
So now I must dress for dinner, and see how I can behave
myself at a Queen's table.
Wednesday morning. The sun is not risen ; but I have
light enough to see across the channel to Portsmouth, and it will
every moment be lighter. The morning is beautiful, and the
scenery from the great terrace before the house such as makes
the heart dance. I always delighted in the Isle of Wight ;
and many are the pleasant, and sometimes toilsome days I
VISITS THE QUEEN AT OS BORNE. 133
have spent in it. But to business. We assembled last night 1847.
at eight. The party consisted of the regular household, viz. ^t. 6
the Queen's two military attendants, General Bowles and
Colonel Grey (Lord Grey's brother); the Prince's Equerry
Colonel Bouverie ; the Prince's two Secretaries, Colonel
Phipps and a foreign gentleman ; and in addition to these
were three visitors Lord and Lady Normanby, and your
uncle. I declare I have not learnt good manners by coming
here ; for I am forgetting the Ladies of the Household, viz.
the Lady in waiting, Lady Canning ; and the Honorable
Miss Kerr, the Maid of Honour by the way a very pretty
young lassie. The Queen in public life is the most punctual
of womankind ; but here, in private, she is more irregular.
She drives about the grounds in all weathers and sometimes
returns late. Last night she and the Prince did not come to
the drawing room till half-past eight, when we instantly filed
off for dinner. No form or ceremony was used the only
distinction being that the Prince led the Queen out first, and
the others followed. The little Maid of Honour fell to my
share ; but we were soon parted, for the Queen commanded
me to sit opposite to her and to say grace. Next me was the
Marchioness of Normanby a lady whom I have often met
before. Her husband, whom I knew well at Trinity College
when he was an undergraduate, sat at the Queen's right hand.
The Prince sat on the Queen's left. The two military -officers
of the Household (General Bowles and Colonel Grey) sat at
the top and bottom of the table. Very great people you
know always sit at the middle of the table. We had a very
good, but not an ostentatious, dinner. The plate was massy
and abundant, but in no other respect remarkable. The
conversation was general and cheerful, without the shadow
of any formality either seen or felt. While the Queen re-
mained, I did remark that they avoided talking across the
table ; but persons addressed those near them without any
restraint whatsoever; and I am sure my neighbour Lady
Normanby was both chatty and cheerful ; and we talked over
134 VISITS THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE.
1847. all the North of England, Whitby, Scarborough, etc. and she
\.. 62. p resse( j me to come and see them when they next went to
their house near Whitby, promising me all sorts of under-
ground treasures. The Queen went away early, the ladies
following her out of the dining-room. After Her Majesty
had gone, the conversation became a little more general, and
perhaps a little more noisy ; but before that we had by no
means been a silent party ; quite the contrary. Infirmities of
the senses were the subject of discussion. Many cases were
mentioned. I mentioned one of old Dalton the chemist, who
mounted, at Oxford, a Doctor's scarlet gown ; and being
laughed at for his splendid uniform, replied : 'What its colour
may be to you I know not ; but to my eyes the colour is just
the same with that of the leaves of the neighbouring trees.'
The discussion ended by an attempt made by one or two of
the party (and not always with success) to walk, with closed
eyes, the whole length of the dining-room without deviating
to right or left. The Prince joined the ladies about a
quarter of an hour before the other gentlemen. This is the
custom when they are what they call in private. He and the
Queen sing together before the ladies in waiting ; but the
Queen does not like to sing before the gentlemen. Coffee is
handed round during this interval. We then all went to the
drawing-room. There was no formality. The Queen and the
ladies were sitting round the fire, and the conversation was
general. The gentlemen generally stood, but not always, the
party being private and not formal. About five minutes
after I entered, the Queen rose from her chair and came
across the room to speak to me. She coloured deeply when
she first began to speak ; and I am certain that, by nature,
she is rather shy and bashful, though compelled by her
exalted station to live in public. I thought so before, when I
went with the Duke of Sussex and the Council of the Royal
Society to present an address to her, not long after she came
to the Throne. She was very kind and gracious, enquired
about my health, hoped I had not such restless nights as I
VISITS THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE. 135
once had etc. etc.; alluded to the pleasures of her Cambridge 1847.
visit ; and then asked me many questions about the Isle ^ 6
of Wight, its internal structure, the chances of obtaining
water by a deep boring, for the water they have at Osborne
is not of the first quality, etc. etc. In talking with a
Sovereign, the rule of good breeding is, not to lead the
conversation ; but when the Queen had once given the lead,
I might go on at my discretion, taking care not to say
too much. I hope I did not offend but I think I must
have a good stock of assurance ; for I was as much at my
ease as if I had been talking with yourself; and I am sure
there was nothing more oppressive in Her Majesty's manner
than there is in yours. This conversation lasted about a
quarter of an hour. The Queen then returned to her seat;
and most of the gentlemen went to the part of the large
drawing-room where there is a billiard-table. The Prince
and Colonel Phipps had a well contested game. Prince
Albert was not only cheerful but mirthful and joyous. The
game over, the Queen took his arm ; and they walked off
exactly at eleven. We all followed soon after; and the
housemaid had a basin of water-gruel and a foot-bath ready
for me in my bed-room. I ordered these things as a remedy
against a rising cold, and this morning I am nearly well.
The drawing-room is very beautiful, and of the following
shape : A Entrance. B Fireplace.
C large bay window. D. E Two
columns and two marble statues.
F Billiard table. The furniture is
beautiful but not ostentatious ; the
curtains of yellow silk damask. In
the recess for the great window
(C) are four beautiful small granite
pillars, surmounted by four statues
of the Queen's four oldest children in the costume of the
four seasons. I. Prince of Wales as Winter. 2. Princess
Royal as Summer. 3. Prince Alfred as Autumn. 4. Little
136 VISITS THE QUEEN AT OS BORNE.
1847. Alice as spring. These statues are beautifully executed in
t. 62. wm 'te marble, and are said to be excellent likenesses ; but I
have not yet seen the children. I must now go and finish my
breakfast; but I need not trouble you about it, as the Queen
and Prince will not be there. So my journal is so far up to
the mark, and full enough, of all conscience. Is it not ?
Wednesday, 7 P.M. Before I sit down to dress for dinner
let me again resume my journal. After breakfast with the
Royal Household I took a stroll in the park. Lord and
Lady Normanby went away ; so I was left the only visitor.
The Prince came about twelve and joined me in the park ;
showed me some quarries, and then asked me to his private
room or study. We there had a rather long discussion on the
Geological Map of the Island, and discussed the question of
finding water by boring, &c. &c. His Royal Highness then
entered at great length on the studies of the University, and
has, I am certain, the deepest interest in the well-being of
Cambridge. He is a well-read man, whose mind is admirably
cultivated in many departments of learning little studied by
our young noblemen, and he is often undervalued by stupid
persons who have no true conception of his real character,
and no power of estimating his sound and very extensive
knowledge. He is called proud and formal. I have not
found him so ; but on the contrary, kind, frank, and cour-
teous. Our discussions lasted nearly two hours. I then
went and joined the Household at lunch. A drizzling rain
prevented me from walking to Cowes. So I sat down in
my room and read reviews and newspapers. Colonel
Phipps, about three, tapped at my door, and told me the
Prince wanted me. The children were with him, and he
kindly offered to introduce me to them. So I put on my
coat and went across to the state-rooms on this charming
errand. Five finer and more healthy children I never saw.
The youngest, Princess Helena, was in the arms, though
I am told able to run about the nursery. The other four
came and held out their little hands. To Prince Alfred (a
VISITS THE QUEEN AT OS BORNE. 137
very fine merry boy, who asked me to tell him a story) I 1847.
told the story of old Mrs Woodcock lost under the snow. &* 62
The Prince of Wales is a fine sharp-looking boy, but old
enough to be a little shy. His sister the Princess Royal
is not a bit shy, but laughed and talked away with great
glee. Her father had told her I knew a great deal about
beautiful stones ; so she asked me to look at her collection
of stones and shells she had picked up in Scotland, about
which she was quite communicative. I must now think of
dressing for dinner. So adieu for the present.
Thursday morning. I observed yesterday a piece of for-
mality which had escaped me before. We all assemble in
the drawing-room before the Queen comes. A servant in
waiting announces her approach. All the ladies and gentle-
men of the Household then move to the door, bow rather low,
and escort the Queen into the room. She bows to the
company, and instantly after takes the Prince's arm and walks
off to dinner. There never is any waiting; for she orders
dinner to be put on the table a certain number of minutes
after she begins to dress ; and she only allows herself ten
minutes (and seldom takes more than a quarter of an hour)
for dressing ! There is an example for you ! of course she
is well helped in this operation. Yesterday she wore a kind
of dark green silk, with a great profusion of beautiful lace,
but with no diamonds. The day before she had the order of
the Garter, and diamond bracelets. Both days she wore a
pretty wreath of flowers about her head. The gentlemen who
have orders wear them ; but in other respects dress like
gentlemen in a private party with one exception however.
They wear not loose trousers at Court, but tight pantaloons or
shorts ; of course I had, as a clergyman, a pair of shorts.
I wish this custom had continued in society. For more than
twenty years after I came to College men commonly appeared
at dinner in shorts and silks. Another thing I forgot to
remark before. A dish of well-toasted oat-cake is handed
round with the cheese. I believe the Queen likes it; and
138 VISITS THE QUEEN AT OS BORNE.
1847. I partook largely of it both days I had the honour of dining
Mt. 62. w j t k ker. j^ conversa tion yesterday was more general than
the day before. As I was the only visitor, and acting as
chaplain, it was considered a family party of the Queen's
Household. The weather, the news of the day, and other
profound subjects were discussed in order. The merits of
the dishes had their share of comment. When the cloth
was removed the Prince began to talk of Alpine scenery,
glaciers, etc., and led to some geological questions in which
I was called on to give my opinion. From glaciers we
travelled naturally to Alpine snows. This introduced the
story of Mrs Woodcock who lived eight days under the snow
near Cambridge 1 . The Prince said the children had been
talking of it to the Queen, who now wished to hear of it from
my own lips. She smiled, and said she really wished to know
the exact truth of so remarkable a story. So I told old Mrs
Woodcock's tale at full length ! This was followed by a
string of wonderful stories, after which Her Majesty rose with
the ladies and left the room. The Prince soon afterwards
followed. We remained and had coffee in the dining-room.
In the drawing-room tea is handed round ; and just before
the Queen retires, negus, lemonade, and some other nice
things of which I never tasted. Her rule is (and she very
seldom breaks her rule) to retire about a quarter before
eleven. Dinner and drawing-room take therefore only about
two hours and a half from her day. And her day is a long
one, as she is an early riser.
1 Mrs Woodcock was riding home from Cambridge to Impington, between
six and seven o'clock in the evening, 2 February, 1799, when her horse took
fright at a meteor (as was supposed) and became unmanageable. She dis-
mounted, and tried to lead him ; but in attempting to do so she wandered
for some distance out of the road across the then unenclosed fields. At last,
thoroughly tired out, she sat down under a hedge, where she was soon over-
whelmed by drifting snow. She was not discovered until about half-past twelve
o'clock on Sunday, 10 February. She died 13 July following, aged 42. A
small column marks the spot, near Impington, where she was overwhelmed.
An Account of the providential preservation of Elizabeth Woodcock. By Tho.
Verney Okes, surgeon, 8vo. Camb. 1799. Cooper's Annals, iv. 463.
VISITS THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE. 139
The recess in the drawing-room with the billiard-table 1847.
answers an excellent purpose I did not quite understand ^ 6
till yesterday. In the drawing-room it is contrary to the old
formalities of Court for any one to sit down, except by
the Queen's special invitation to her own table. When she
talks to any one she rises and walks up to them ; and the
conversation over she walks back to her table. Round this
table are generally sitting the ladies of Court, and men of
high rank, officers of state, &c., &c.; but they are supposed
to go there by special invitation. At the farther end of the
room are card-tables round which the company may sit ; but
by courtesy they are, at that distance, supposed to be out
of the Royal presence. But in the recess, where is the
billiard-table, any one may lounge and sit just as suits him :
and there are sofas, chairs, and cushioned benches in abun-
dance. For the room is very large, though it looks small
in my miserable sketch. The moment the Queen leaves
the drawing-room the guests and Household retire to their
respective apartments. Before the Queen retired I was sent
for to receive the Royal adieu. There is no formality in it.
The Prince then held out his hand and said adieu and so
ended the Royal visit ; for I shall not see them again, unless
it be by accident, before I start for the steamer this morning.
But the young ones are visible; and the little Prince of
Wales is, at this moment, riding a rocking-horse just under
my window. There ! I have done. I must dress for break-
fast, then find my way to the pier, and embark in the Fairy
for Gosport. I hope to dine in London, and tomorrow to be
again in Cambridge. I have sent you this account of my
visit, because I thought it would amuse you all. I have been
scrawling in the greatest hurry, and by snatches of time.
You may read parts of this letter to your friends if you like ;
but take care of it, and don't let any one have a copy of it ;
for I have sent the kind of gossip which a newspaper editor
would like to lay hold of, but which I would not supply him
with on any account whatsoever. Of course I have written
HO LADIES AT SEDGWICK^S LECTURES.
1847. about myself, because I have told things exactly as they
i. 62. happened to myself. So now a happy Christmas to you all.
Ever, dearest Isabella,
Your affectionate uncle,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
CAMBRIDGE, February jth, 1848.
"...I began my lectures in the latter part of October,
immediately after my return from Dent. It was my 3Oth
course, and I had a very large class. Do you know that the
Cambridge daughters of Eve are like their mother, and love
to pluck fruit from the tree of knowledge ? They believe, in
their hearts, that geologists have dealings with the spirits of
the lower world ; yet spite of this they came, and resolved to
learn from me a little of my 'black art.' And, do you
know, it is now no easy matter to find room for ladies, so
monstrously do they puff themselves, out of all nature, in the
mounting of their lower garments, so that they put my poor
lecture-room quite in a bustle. Lest they should dazzle my
young men, I placed them, with their backs to the light, on
one side of my room. And what do you think was the
consequence ? All my regular academic class learnt to
squint, long before my course was over. If you can't under-
stand this, come and see for yourself; and I will promise
you, that when you set your foot in my lecture-room, and sit
down with your back to the light, you will make them all
squint ten times worse than ever.
About the end of term I received the Queen's com-
mands to spend two days at Osborne House. I had a
charming visit, and was treated with a kindness which
has made me very grateful as well as very loyal. There
were no red coats no bands of music no state. Every-
thing savoured of domestic peace and love; and the Queen
and Prince seemed as happy as human beings can be in
this world...."
INFLUENZA. 141
During the winter of 1847 4$ Sedgwick was nearly 1848.
as ill as he had been during that of 1846 47, with the ^.6
additional discomfort of being obliged to travel about
when he ought to have been nursing himself at home.
He was called to Dent on family business in December,
caught a cold, and had to return to London before it was
cured, having been bound over to prosecute a thief who
had stolen his portmanteau. A quiet visit to Hurstmon-
ceaux restored him to comparative health, thanks to the
skilful nursing of his host and hostess ; but a hasty journey
to Norwich brought the worst symptoms back again. " A
few hours after my arrival," he wrote, "I was smitten down
by an attack of influenza, and almost confined to my bed.
Mr Brooke the Rajah of Sarawak was there ; but I only
once attempted to dine with the Bishop, and I did so in
much misery. You have read of the cup of Circe, which
whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,
and downward fell into a grovelling swine :
but the influenza is worse than Circe's dose. It turns a man,
even a beautiful man like myself (for surely, my dear Kate,
you might say of me in Milton's own words 'Adam the
goodliest man of men since born '), into a slimy reptile 1 ."
Under these circumstances mental exertion was out of
the question, and Sedgwick was obliged to decline writing the
article on Geology for the Admiralty Manual of Scientific
Inquiry, which it appears he had consented to undertake. He
told the Secretary of the Admiralty that he was " good for
nothing, and could do nothing," even in the way of advice.
But to Herschel, who was editor of the work, and to whom the
application to himself was no doubt due, he made an excel-
lent suggestion: "I should think Darwin's advice valuable;
he knows practically what is wanted 2 ." This was acted
upon, and Darwin consented to write the article.
1 To Miss Kate Malcolm, i January, 1848.
2 To Sir J. W. Herschel, i January, 1848.
142 THE MYSTERY OF NUMBERS.
1848. Sedgwick was to be in Residence at Norwich during May
t. 63. anc j June, and he was very anxious to induce the Herschels to
pay him a visit. After some correspondence Sir John had
suggested May 16 or May 17, and had added : " How are you
off for Chartists about you ? Is it necessary to travel armed
with patent double-action revolvers ? " He received the
following reply :
NORWICH, Thursday Evening, [27 April, 1848].
My dear Herschel,
Norwich ! no, I mean Cambridge ; for I am at
Cambridge still, but indeed I am as stupid as an ill-fed
jackass, and cross as a cat with its foot in a trap. But I
mean to be all sweetness the moment you are all with me.
The 1 6th suits me exactly, as I have made no engagements
yet for my Residence. But do come on the i6th and not
on the 1 7th, for the philosophy of Pythagoras tells you
that 1 6 stands for good luck, which is more than you can
say of 17. The former is a buxom number, the latter looks
angular, ugly, and old-maidish. Merry 16 for ever! Is it
not made up of one and a perfect number? Is it not the
square of four ? And is not four like the ace of diamonds ?
Turn 1 6 upside down, and, like the housewife's cat, does it
not again stand on good legs. And is it not then made
up of the number of the muses, and the square of the
number of the graces -f one over for luck ? Come then on
the 1 6th, and you will come in the nick of time, and old
Nick is in it if you don't nick in on the right day. Per
contra look at 17! Tis made up of one and a gibbet-post.
And does not the upper shank of said gibbet-post point to
the left hand, which is a sign of ill luck ? A spoon-fed
baby one who has not yet learnt 'to lisp in numbers '-
would choose 16 before 17. Come therefore on the i6th
of the merry month of May; and when come you will
then surely be well come. So there is a bargain struck !
And stay with me as long as you can the longer the
LETTER TO BISHOP WILBERFORCE. 143
better. Lady Herschel and your two daughters will do 1848.
me a thousand times more good than a thousand doses ^t. 63.
of colchicum, which alas ! has for the last month been my
meat and drink.
So good night. My kindest regards to your best rib, and
my affectionate remembrances to all your young folks, though
I fear some of them are too young to remember me.
Ever truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
P.S. I know nothing about Chartists ; but bring your
patent revolvers with you to take care of Lady H., and
I will find some sharp blades to guard your daughters.
To Bishop Wilberforce.
CAMBRIDGE, July 16, 1848.
My dear Lord Bishop,
Surely 'tis no sin to write to a Bishop on a
Sunday morning ; especially if the writer have risen at 5 a.m.
(as I have done) in the hope of paying off some of his many
debts. I am only passing through Cambridge that I may
arrange some matters of business, and pack my geological
apparatus for a tour in Scotland. My table is covered
with notes and parcels, which have come since I left
Cambridge at the end of April. Among them I find the
sermon your Lordship preached at Oxford on the occasion
of the meeting of the British Association. I heard it then,
I rejoice to have it now, and I send you my best thanks
for it.
What strange turns the political world has made since
I last saw you ! I used to call myself a whig ; I don't
know what to call myself now. The whigs have disgusted
me ever since their admission of slave-grown sugar in
1841, and I think they cut a shameful and sorry figure
in the long debate in the House of Commons during this
session. You may judge of my opinion when I say that
the only speeches I quite liked in that wire-drawn debate
144 FRONTIER CHAIN OF SCOTLAND.
1848. (on the sugar question) were those of Lord Nugent and
*- 6 3- Sir Robert Inglis. Sir Robert spoke, like himself Lord
Nugent spoke above himself. The earliest pictures shown
to me by my father when I was a child were ugly
pictures of the horrors of slavery. As soon as I had
learnt to scrawl my name in child's characters I remember
asking leave to sign a petition against the slave-trade.
Leave was granted, and I felt proud of the first political
act of my life, when my dear father patted me on the
head. Oh that some of the spirit of old Fox were still
left among the whigs ! with all his faults he always felt
nobly ; and he would, I think, never have allowed beggarly
economical views to seduce him out of the road of humanity
and national honour.
I shall have no opportunity of meeting any of my friends
at Swansea this summer. Two months I have spent in
Residence at Norwich. It will never do for me to cut my
Scotch work in two by a run to South Wales ; especially
as I must be here to attend the Fellowship Examination
the first week in October. I know your many engagements,
but Cambridge is now only two hours from London, and
I should rejoice to conduct your Lordship through my
Museum, and to offer you the hospitality of the College.
Believe me,
My dear Lord Bishop,
very faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
Sedgwick's summer was devoted to a revision of his work
in 1841 along "the southern chain of Scotland that runs
from St Abb's Head to the Mull of Galloway." After a
brief visit to Dent and Kendal where he picked up John
Ruthven and his inseparable companion the dog Charlie he
travelled by way of Glasgow to the coast of Ayr. There and
in Wigtonshire he enjoyed himself exceedingly in the society
of old friends both recent and fossil. " The weather is
charming," he wrote, "and the country delightful, and day
SCOTCH LANDLORDS. 145
by day I get younger and stronger." As before, he dwells 1848.
enthusiastically on the scenic beauties of the district the &*-. 63.
wooded shores the warm and fruitful valleys opening to the
south and the glorious views seaward ; but on this subject
enough was said while describing the former visit. Of geo-
logical details his letters are provokingly barren, for, as he
was no longer collaborating with any one, he had no reason
for keeping a correspondent informed of his discoveries.
That he collected vigorously, is evident from the following
anecdote :
" Near Girvan I met a pretty lassie about seven or eight
years old. She was very curious about our employment. I
asked her name. 'Primrose Caldwell', was her answer, and
she lived near a large limestone quarry, and could show us
' flood-shells in plenty.' By flood-shells she meant shells left
at Noah's flood, as I soon made out. ' Ye are just the bonnie
lassie I want/ said I, ' and if you will show us the quarry, I
will give you a penny for every flood-shell you can pick up.'
Away went little Primrose on her bare feet, and worked so
effectually, that she emptied my pocket of coppers, and
drew sixpence over from me. She beat Ruthven two to one.
I never saw a child in greater ecstacy 1 ."
As a pendant to this picture may be quoted Sedgwick's
comments on Scotch landlords and their habits. " In many
parts of Scotland the inns are very good and well kept, but
a geologist pokes into odd nooks and corners, and certainly
I found some true old Scotch dirt among them. The land-
lords in these out-of-the-way places have a sad habit of
drinking whiskey, and their noses look like the ends of hot
pokers. An old fellow of this class was very angry that
I disturbed his lasses so early in the mornings. ' There's the
man wi' the hammer fashing a the hoose/ he groaned one
morning about six. Soon afterwards he turned out, and
went to his fountain of comfort, the whiskey-bottle. 'You
1 To Miss Fanny Hicks, 21 August, 1848.
S. II. 10
146 FRONTIER-CHAIN OF SCOTLAND.
1848. will burn your gizzard/ cried I, 'if you swallow that hot stuff
JEt. 63. so early, and you will make your liver as hard as a lapstone.'
' Hout awa/ cried Boniface, ' a drap o' whuskey does hurt to
na man. Ye wash your mouth wi' a brush and cald watter.
I ken a better way. I wash mine wi a drap o' whuskey.'
But he did not let one drop serve him ; for soon afterwards
one or two brothers of the bottle-nose corporation came in
for their 'drap o' morning/ and they all seemed to be
gathering round the neck of the whiskey bottle with most
spiritual devotion 1 ."
From this corner of Scotland Sedgwick worked his way
by Dumfries to Edinburgh, and then along the east coast to
Berwick, whence he made a fresh start, and ascended the
Tweed, "following its sinuosities for about 100 miles." By
the end of September he was once more at Dent.
The results of this summer's work, combined with that of
1841, and some further researches made in 1849 by John
Ruthven, were read to the British Association at Edinburgh
in 1850. The opening sentences of the paper give a general
summary of Sedgwick's conclusions.
Leaving out of account all igneous and intrusive rocks, the
chain is essentially composed of a peculiar form of greywacke,
often coarse, and sometimes, though rarely, passing into a very
coarse conglomerate, not unlike some of the conglomerates among
the old rocks of South Wales. These hard coarse beds alternate
indefinitely with a peculiar soft, earthy, and almost pyritous alum-
slate, which frequently has undergone such compression and in-
duration that it passes into an earthy flag-stone, and, more rarely,
into a pretty good roofing-slate; but in no instance is the slaty
structure distinct from the stratification in any quarries that are
worked for use.
From one end of the chain to the other the beds are highly
inclined, strike generally in the mean direction of the chain, and
are thrown into contortions and undulations. The great protruding
granitic masses never form any true mineralogical centre, though
producing, as might be expected, considerable local derangements,
and local changes of structure; and, in a few instances, they are
accompanied, near their junction, with the phenomena of mineral
veins. The axis of the chain, the centre of the vast undulations,
1 To Lady Herschel, 23 September, 1848.
FRONTIER-CHAIN OF SCOTLAND. 147
seems to be very ill-defined ; and the difficulty of determining this 1848.
point is greatly increased by the bogs and extensive vegetable yt. 63.
accumulation by which the sections are much covered 1 .
At Edinburgh Sedgwick was much disappointed at
failing to meet Mr Hugh Miller, with whom he had already
corresponded. The letters that he wrote to him subse-
quently throw some light upon this summer's work, and are
further valuable as showing the continued interest he took in
fossil fish. In the first letter, after expressing regret at
having missed him repeatedly in Edinburgh, Sedgwick
proceeds : " I am told you have a magnificent collection of
the Old Red Sandstone fishes. Have you many species not
in the monograph of Agassiz ? Though my collection from
this formation is by no means first-rate, yet I have several
undescribed species. Of course you are well acquainted with
the discovery of scales, teeth, and other fragments of the
skeletons of fishes from the Old Red Sandstone of Berwick-
shire. I visited the localities near Dunse along with Mr
Stevenson, the first discoverer of these fossils. They are
satisfactory, though not good as specimens. I have little to
say of the greywacke chain that you do not know already.
Graptolites are the prevailing fossils. Wherever thin dark
aluminous beds occur between the hard, thick, arenaceous,
greywacke, we hardly ever failed to discover them, and
sometimes in most incredible abundance. The absence of
limestone and of fossil shells in the greater part of the chain
from St Abb's Head to the Mull of Galloway is very remark-
able. Wherever calcareous matter appears, whether in beds
or large concretions, you may, however, find fossil shells, and
they are by no means rare in the chain which extends south
of a line drawn from Ballantrae and Girvan. The stratifica-
tion of the chain is so confused, and so much concealed, that
I literally could make nothing of it 2 ."
1 Report of the British Association for 1850 (Sections), p. 103.
2 To Hugh Miller, 28 September, 1848.
IO 2
148 FISHES OF OLD RED SANDSTONE.
1848. To Hugh Miller, Esq.
t. 63. CAMBRIDGE, October nth, 1848.
My dear Sir,
Let me thank you for the pleasure and instruction
your papers have given me. I shall take them with me
and look them over while I have more leisure. I only told
you the plain truth when I said I thought it quite a misfortune
not to have seen you at Edinburgh. I wished to make your
personal acquaintance, and I wished to see your collection ; and
I had another, and in some respects a more selfish, motive.
I make no collection for myself; but I am anxious for the
honour of the University collection, which has grown up under
my hands, and is now very valuable and instructive. Now
I thought I might engage your interest in behalf of Cambridge.
You know the localities in Scotland better than any man
living, and you know the persons who collect the Old Red
Sandstone fishes. Many valuable specimens of species you
possess already may be submitted to you from time to time.
Specimens you do not want for your own collection might be
of very great value to us, and I should be anxious to purchase
such on your recommendation. This was one subject about
which I wished to speak to you. But I know how much you
are engaged, and perhaps I am unreasonable in making this
request for your kind intervention whenever an occasion may
turn up. Believe me,
My dear Sir, very faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To the same.
SCALBY, near SCARBOROUGH, December 2nd, 1848.
My dear Sir,
I ought long since to have thanked you for your
copies of The Witness. Your remarks on the stones imbedded
in your Drift Clay, and grooved parallel to their longer axis,
were quite new to me, and I think very instructive, though I
was not quite satisfied with your mechanical reasons for the
FISHES OF OLD RED SANDSTONE. 149
phenomenon. I have seen nothing like it in the Drift Clay 1848.
(almost exactly like your Till) of the flat southern countries ^t* 63-
of England. I believe our Till (if we may so call it) was formed
exclusively by water by waves of translation and not by ice ;
and I by no means agree with what Lyell has written about
it. I still think it a misfortune that I missed you and your
collection and I hope before long to come again to Edinburgh
to make up for what I lost ; and by the express from London
'tis but one day's journey, thanks to steam. ...Have you seen
McCoy's paper on certain fishes in my Museum derived from
various parts of the Old Red Sandstone ? It is published in
The Annals of Philosophy 1 , and contains some good and new
matter, and the description of one or two new species.
Let me, before I conclude, thank you also for a second
great pleasure I had last term while reading over, a second
time, your account of your English tour. I doubt whether
there be another man living who could have visited the
several spots described in your narration with like feelings. A
geologist might have rejoiced with you in the Dudley quarries;
.and thousands would gladly walk with you through scenes
consecrated by Cowper's poetry, but few indeed would travel
the whole road with you. I could enter into the most of your
feelings and descriptions, though I should perhaps have
yawned my way through the wreck of poor Shenstone's walks,
cascades, and temples, had I been your companion 2 . All your
descriptions, however, I like.
Believe me, my dear Sir, very truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
The Michaelmas term was spent as usual in lecturing. At
the beginning of the Christmas Vacation Sedgwick fulfilled
1 McCoy's paper was read before the Cambridge Philosophical Society,
5 June, 1848, and an abstract printed in The Annals of Philosophy, xxxm. 311.
The complete text will be found in The Annals and Magazine of NatTiral History
for 1848, n. i 10, 115 133.
2 First Impressions of England and its People. By Hugh Miller, 8vo. London,
1847. Chapters vni, ix, x, describe a visit to The Leasowes, a small domain
laid out by Shenstone the poet.
150 LECTURE AT IPSWICH.
1848. a promise made long ago to Henslow. " On Monday the
*. 63. IIt h he writes"! went to Ipswich. On the I2th I lectured
to a class of six or seven hundred people. On Wednesday
we had an anniversary dinner with the usual accompaniment
of speeches, and then in the evening a grand promenade in
the Museums 1 ."
The subject of the lecture was the anatomy and physi-
ology of three of the gigantic extinct mammals of South
America, the Megatherium, the Mylodon, and the Glyptodon.
It is difficult to understand how such a subject could have
been made interesting to an audience not specially ac-
quainted with paleontology but we are told that they were
"alternately charmed with the vast learning of the lecturer,
and thrown off their gravity by the most grotesque illus-
trations." No doubt Sedgwick did his best with his extinct
mammals he was always fond of paleontology; but, just as
the most important part of a letter is not seldom to be
found in the postscript, it is evident that he threw his whole
strength into the second part of the lecture, where he dilated,
with characteristic vigour and emphasis, on the lessons to be
learnt from such discoveries. Sedgwick's lectures no matter
what the subject-matter with which they began usually
ended with whatever was uppermost in his mind at the
moment. When he appeared before his friends at Ipswich
he was forging fresh thunderbolts against the author of
The Vestiges ; and in consequence we find a considerable
space devoted to the argument from final causes. He con-
cluded with a noble passage on the true method of recon-
ciling science with revelation. "If," he said, "we believed,
as we did believe, that the Author of Nature allowed us
to call Him Father, and that He called us children, and that
He gave us the hope of a heavenly hereafter, let us also
believe, at the same time, while obeying those instincts which
He has implanted in our bosoms, and reading the records
1 To Miss Fanny Hicks, 19 December, 1848.
SCIENCE AND REVELATION. 151
of His will as written in the solid framework of the earth, 1849. '
or in the glittering phenomena of the sky, or in what the &*- 6 4-
broad generalisations of science had manifested, that these
two kinds of truth, embodied in physical history and revealed
religion, so far from being conflicting, were entirely in unison
and harmony, if we investigated the one, and read the other,
in a right spirit 1 ."
The year 1849 mav be introduced by the following
letters :
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
CAMBRIDGE, January 2.7 th, 1849.
My dear Fanny,
I reached Cambridge this day fortnight, after a
very pleasant visit to my old friend and pupil the Arch-
bishop 2 . On my table were many letters requiring answers,
and among them a note from Mr Armstrong 3 , an old
schoolfellow and college friend, whom your papa must
remember, though he left Cambridge and went to the Bar
before my brother James came to college in 1813. His
wife and niece were with him on a visit to Professor Starkie 4
of Downing College. When young, Mrs A. was very beau-
tiful, and I believe there was a strong attachment between
her and my friend Armstrong about thirty years since ; but
they had no money, and so Love flew away, and Hymen
put out his torch. In course of time Armstrong became
Recorder of Manchester, and the emoluments of that office,
with what he made as a barrister, enabled him again to
think of marriage ; and a considerable fortune had also come
to Miss Blamire, now Mrs Armstrong. Twenty years or
more had not extinguished the fires of love ; they were still
1 The Siiffolk Chronicle, 16 December, 1848.
- Rev. T. Musgrave, formerly Fellow of Trinity College, became Archbishop
of York in 1847.
3 R. B. Armstrong, of Trinity College. See Index.
4 Thomas Starkie, of St John's College, B.A. 1803; afterwards Fellow of St
Catharine's College, and Downing Professor of the Laws of England 1823 49.
152 JENNY LIND AT NORWICH.
1849. smouldering in the embers. So off he set, made an offer of
JEt. 64. marriage, and soon converted a very old maid into a very
happy old wife. I dined with them on the I4th at Downing,
and they dined with me on the i$th.
Then, after a day spent in letter-writing, I went up to a
meeting of the Geological Society ; but I returned early on
the 1 8th, to prepare for my visit to Norwich. Jenny Lind
was to sing on the 22'nd and 23rd, and I had asked four
college friends to my house. Isabella's bed and yours were
occupied by two of our Tutors 1 . My best bed fell to the
share of Martin our Bursar, and Professor Walmisley 2 had
the dressing-room. I had my own bed, and the ground-floor
study was made into what think you ? A smoking-room !
Was not this a charming arrangement ?...
Jenny Lind had quite a triumphal entry on the Saturday.
She was greeted by lusty cheers, and followed with acclama-
tions to the Palace, being conducted in the Mayor's carriage.
St Andrew's Hall was filled almost to suffocation ; but my
party had good reserved seats secured by the kind fore-
thought of my friend Kate Stanley. I had a gay luncheon
for some ladies on the Tuesday, and in the evening we all
went to the Palace. Jenny Lind played some Scotch and
Swedish airs, but did not sing. Walmisley then gained
great applause by a performance on the piano. Jenny
turned over the leaves for him, and turning round once or
twice cried out in German, 'splendid, glorious, and he feels
it.' He then laid a trap for her. He played a sweet
national Swedish air, and spite of herself she began to sing.
On Wednesday morning all my party (except Walmisley
who performed again at the Palace on Wednesday evening)
came away. Two ladies joined our party ; so we filled one
carriage, and had a right merry journey to Cambridge. I
1 Rev. W. H. Thompson, M.A. afterwards Master ; and Rev. W. C. Mathi-
son, M.A. then one of the Assistant Tutors.
2 Thomas Attwood Walmisley, Professor of Music 1836 56, and organist to
Trinity College.
JENNY LIND AT NORWICH. 153
was truly sorry when it was over. So now, dearest Fankin, 1849.
you have my history. I am again dull and busy, and on ^t. 64.
Thursday I was half dead with fatigue and the pressure of a
bad cold. I went out for a few minutes yesterday, but I
could not stand the cold air, though the day was charming,
and the sun shining. So I came in again and read Layard's
account of his great discoveries among the ruins of Nineveh.
The two volumes are full of wonders. You may see an
excellent Review of the work in The Quarterly, written
by Milman. Vanity Fair I have also read since I returned
to Cambridge from Scalby. It is a very clever book ; but I
am not sure that it is profitable reading. 'Tis late and I am
rather tired, so lift up your mouth and give me a kiss, and
then pass it round. Ever affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
P.S....'Tis said that the Norwich Charities will gain 1200
by Jenny's visit. She gave her services ! Indeed she is a
noble creature.
Sedgwick's account of Jenny Lind at Norwich may be
supplemented by what Miss Stanley wrote after her de-
parture :
It was a wonderful evening that Wednesday. We had no
regular party only the Committee and some of the manufacturers,
etc. She sang like a bird of paradise, till the whole house rang again.
It was impossible to keep the people out; the stairs and passages
were thronged, and when at last they were obliged to lock the front
door the people stood under the windows, and all down the walks, in
hopes of catching some remnants of the heavenly sounds....
The next day she went. She showed the deepest emotion at
leaving us, and we feel as if a ray of sunshine had departed. It may
seem extravagant to say so, but it is impossible, after spending five
days in her society, not to feel that we have been in the presence of
one of the great ones of the earth. She is a wonderful being !
From one young lady to another the transition is easy ;
and therefore we will next quote a playful note written to
the second daughter of Mr Hopkins, the well-known mathe-
matician and geologist. He and his family were very
intimate with Sedgwick.
154 THE ROMANCE OF A GLOVE.
1849. To Miss Augusta Hopkins.
TRINITY COLLEGE, January 2%tk, 1849.
My dear Miss Hopkins,
I have found your lost glove and now return it.
Call therefore all your lady friends together, and tell them to
rejoice with you. But it was cruel of you to ask for it, as it
was the only glove of the kind in my old College den ; and
indeed I had watched it, and fostered it, with as much care
as if it had been the big Punjaub diamond. Now that you
have it, pray take care of it. Gloves have done much mis-
chief sometimes they have been symbols of love sometimes
of deadly hate and furious fight sometimes they may have
symbolized both love and hate for purring and scratching
are often close together. But these are mysteries I have
long outlived. All I have to say is take care of your glove ;
and keep it safe till the day a priest orders you to pull off
your glove, and give your bare hand to the happiest man in
England. After that day you may throw it away, if such be
your liking. I made a mistake yesterday and grasped the
hand of a stranger who was between you and your sister. If
she thought it odd pray tell her that, though I am sometimes
out of my mind, I am generally looked on as harmless. I
really at first imagined that the lady had been a duplicate of
yourself another Miss Hopkins. My act only proved that
she dazzled me and so I hope she will forgive me. So now
good morning. Had I been forty years younger I should
have cried out with Romeo ' Oh that I were a glove ' (by the
way I have all my life been thought like Romeo, and like him
I have been sadly crossed in love) ; or perhaps I might have
come with your glove pinned to the left side of my waistcoat,
and asked you to wear the man that bore it so near his heart.
These are grave matters ; but 'tis right to speak with gravity
on a Sunday morning, is it not ? So, with all kind wishes,
1 am Most truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
JENNY LIND AT CAMBRIDGE. . 155
To Mrs Homer.
CAMBRIDGE, March itfh, 1849. j&t. 6 4 .
...Jenny Lind has been here. She sang like an angel on
Monday. On Tuesday I showed her the lions ; but the
admiring mob so pressed upon us that she became quite
nervous, and was obliged to retire to her lodgings. She now
speaks English admirably, and begins to relish our best
writers. She is a person of great simplicity of purpose, of
a heart glowing with kindness, and of a great genius not in
music only, but in anything to which she turns her mind, and
her mind is open to all subjects that best adorn a woman. I
was surprised at her information, considering how very large
a portion of her life must have been absorbed in professional
studies. She is very religious without any cant, and she
seems to rejoice inexpressibly at her emancipation from the
theatre. Were it not a sin I should envy the man who is
going to marry her. It once or twice struck me how charm-
ing it would be to have her at one's side and to teach her
English. Is it not said that 'old men dream dreams' ?...
At the end of March we find Sedgwick at Norwich. He
affected to be drawn thither by Chapter business, and the
presence of the judges, but admitted that " above all " he
hoped to attend Rush's 1 trial. Mr Jermy, the elder of the
two victims, had been Recorder of Norwich, and perhaps
was personally known to -Sedgwick ; but even without that
additional inducement, the atrocity of the crime, and the
dramatic incidents of the trial, offered irresistible attractions.
We have often heard him describe in conversation the scene
recorded in the following letter :
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, April 6th, 1849.
"...On the 29th began the great trial. I went with the
1 On the evening of Tuesday, 28 November, 1848, a man named James
Bloomfield Rush entered Stanfield Hall, near Wymondham, the residence of
Mr Jermy. He shot Mr Jermy and his son dead, and severely wounded Mrs
Jermy and her maid, Eliza Chestney, who ran to help her mistress.
156 TRIAL OF RUSH.
Bishop at 7 a.m. to secure a seat in the Sheriff's gallery.
JEt. 64. You can hardly conceive the excitement. The Bishop and
six Peers were sitting on one bench, and all the aristocracy of
the county seemed collected in the Crown Court. The trial
began at 9 exactly. But I need not tell you of details which
are so well given in the papers. On the afternoon of that
day Eliza Chestney was brought on a couch into the Court.
She had resolved to come, and many thought she would die
on the road from Wymondham. It was not like anything in
real life. It seemed like some scene in wild romance conjured
up by magic before the eyes. She was in deep mourning,
and pale as death from long suffering, and thin as a skeleton,
yet her features were beautiful, and her voice most sweet and
touching. She spoke in good English, and with the accent
and manner of a well-bred woman. Her evidence you have
read, but no words can convey to you the thrill that ran
through the Court when at the conclusion she was asked if
she could tell who was the murderer. She stretched out her
right hand, and pointing to the prisoner said : ' That is the
man.' It seemed as if she had expended all her strength in
this one effort. Her thin pain-worn hand sank down, and for
several seconds there was through the whole Court a death-
like silence. Even Rush seemed to be abashed for an instant,
but soon recovered, and commenced a cross-examination, by
which, however, he gained nothing....
I attended the whole of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
On Monday I was out of Court a few hours. On Tuesday
afternoon I attended a Chapter meeting of two hours, and on
leaving Court on the same evening I was so tired that I could
not dine at the Palace, but took a basin of broth at my own
house, and went to bed for two hours, and then joined them
in the drawine-room. Now, however, I had an excellent seat
o
close to the judge, procured for me by the Chief Baron.
During the week before I had been cramped to death in the
gallery. On Wednesday (the last day of the trial) I was in
Court from 8 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., when sentence of death was
ACCIDENT. 157
pronounced by the judge after a short and most impressive 1849.
speech, delivered with great solemnity and feeling. The ^ 6 4-
prisoner was the only man who seemed to hear his sentence
with hardihood and indifference....
To Sir R. L Murchison.
THURSDAY, 5 April, 1849.
...It [the trial] has been a wonderful psychological pheno-
menon. ...The monster Rush is a man not without feeling; is
capable of being moved to tears, susceptible of deep religious
emotion, not, I believe, put on to cheat, but, for a moment,
felt. He was, of course, without any steady moral principle :
and he had become so hardened and selfish, that he was
persuaded that whatever he was inclined to do was right
Sedgwick's Residence at Norwich this year was to occupy
him during May and June, after which he hoped to be able to
resume his work in Scotland. But early in May he fell over
the sill of a window on the ground-floor of his Norwich house,
and bruised one of his legs. The wound seemed so trifling
that he went about as usual for a week or so, until the pain
became excessive. " So I sent for a surgeon," he says, " and
he looked glum, and called in a second surgeon, and they
ordered me to bed, where they kept me for a fortnight with
a cradle over my leg 1 ." During this period of quiescence the
inflammation culminated in an abscess, which produced
sleepless nights, and great weakness. The end of June
came before he could ''hobble to the drawing-room on
crutches ;" and even then his recovery was slow. Perhaps
it was retarded rather than accelerated by the assiduities
of his friends ; for during a subsequent illness he was re-
minded by one of his lady-friends of the time "when you
bore your confinement with heroic patience, and reclining
in Asiatic state, you graciously received courtiers, and ad-
mirers, and friends, and lovers." But a short spell of quiet
1 To James Ainger, Esq. 14 July, 1849.
158 SLOW RECOVERY.
1849. at the sea-side did wonders, and when he got back to
t. 64. Cambridge at the end of July he announced that " I am
now, thank God, in excellent health ; and my leg is quite
free from pain, though still rather stiff, so that I halt a
little when I walk. But I improve hourly ; and in a day
or two I hope to resume my horse-exercise 1 ." For the
next six weeks he remained quietly in Trinity College,
preparing the final edition (the fifth) of his Discourse, to
which reference has been already made 2 . He then hoped
to publish at no distant date ; but from various causes, to
be narrated as we proceed, the complete work did not appear
until the year 1850 was far advanced. We will therefore
defer the remarks we have to make on it, and for the present
content ourselves with the two following letters.
To the Master of Trinity College.
CAMBRIDGE, August zgth, 1849.
My dear Whewell,
You are now out of England, and I resume my
old address. When you come back you must again be ' Dear
Master.' I have just returned from the grave-side of the poor
Marquis 3 , to which I went with the family as a mourner. He
died on Sunday morning about nine of mere exhaustion. For
long he has not been able to swallow any solid food, and
latterly he has only swallowed liquids in small quantity, and
with great uneasiness and difficulty....
I arrived here towards the end of July; and I hope to
attend the Birmingham Meeting on the I2th of next month.
When it is over I trust that I shall be able to go back with
Isabella to Dent, and to drink in health and happiness among
my native hills. On or before the 1st of October, I mean to
be again in Cambridge. My leg continues stiff and rather
troublesome, but I can bear horse exercise, and Mercury
1 To Mrs John Sedgwick, 24 July, 1849.
2 See above, Vol. i. p. 402.
3 The Marquis Spineto, Vol. i. p. 457, note.
NEW PREFACE TO DISCOURSE. 159
is in such flighty spirits that he sometimes, in the hot weather, 1849.
p-ives me more exercise than I like. I mean to be on his &*. 6 4 .
o
back as soon as I have finished this sheet...
As I cannot climb mountains I am trying to pass through
the press a preface that ought to have appeared more than
two years since. I wish you were here that I might consult
you on some points where I do not feel . myself strong. A
preface of three hundred pages to a sermon of but eighty
will look somewhat out of proportion, but it will be a
dissertation on many weighty questions, and I must try not
to break down under the load of them. I trust that your
residence at Kreuznach has entirely restored Mrs Whewell's
health. I must stop, for my hand will not bear crossing.
Ever truly and affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Hugh Miller, Esq.
CAMBRIDGE, September $rd, 1849.
My dear Sir,
Your beautiful little book, Footprints of the Creator,
came to me about ten days since. As I was then very busy,
and M c Coy longed to see it, I lent it to him, and he returned
it on Saturday evening. I have now skimmed over one
or two of its chapters, and I will lose no more time before
I heartily thank you for the great delight it has so far given
me, and for the great profit and pleasure I promise myself
from its perusal and study. I am here in consequence of
a severe accident, the effects of which make me at present
incapable of climbing mountains, or doing any good field-
work. But for this misfortune I should have been now
hammering in the frontier chain of Scotland. I am however
making a virtue of necessity, and passing through the press a
long preface to a little work which was printed early in 1847.
The geological part of my preface or dissertation was written
in the spring of 1847, and I meant to pass the whole through
160 FISHES OF OLD RED SANDSTONE.
1849. the press during the spring of that year. But my old tor-
Mt. 6 4 . mentor, the rheumatic gout, came upon me, and drove me
to Bath, and since then I have never had time or nerve to
continue my long-interrupted task.
In the early part of this preface, which has been some time
printed, I have replied to the remarks on my Review by the
author of the Vestiges, but, as I wished to write popularly, so
far as possible, and not technically, I have thrown my remarks
upon heterocercal tails, Ganoids, etc. etc., into a note (not yet
printed), which is to appear in a supplement to the appendix.
In this note I have adopted M c Coy's nomenclature (diphy-
cercal) for what you call tails set awry. I think his tripartite
division a good one. He had shown from my specimens that
the Diplopterus was not truly heterocercal, as it is represented
in the restoration of Agassiz. But he never meant to speak
disrespectfully of Agassiz. He only meant to say that his
own specimens showed more than those figured in the mono-
graph of the fishes of the Old Red Sandstone. Agassiz is a
great naturalist, but not a prophet. I wish Egerton 1 had not
attacked M c Coy, whose reply 2 seems to me quite satisfactory.
I honour and respect them both, and neither of them wishes
for anything but the promotion of truth.
In the note I have said a word or two about the place of
the Ganoids of the Old Red Sandstone, and mentioned the
peculiarities of the intestinal canal, as indicated by the
coprolites. This I find well noticed in your book (parts
of which I have skimmed by help of the pictures a very
common way with me of reading), but I think I have, by help
of M c Coy, pushed the matter a little further than you have
done. He pointed out to me last year a remark of Miiller's,
that all Ganoids with the spiral intestinal valves have a
muscular bulbus arteriosus. Their hearts are therefore almost
identical with the hearts of the lower reptiles. This remark I
have endeavoured to turn to good account. I have hinted at
1 Annals and Magazine of 'Natural History ', 1848, ii. 189.
2 Ibid. 277.
NEW PREFACE TO DISCOURSE. 161
the fact of degradation, both in my Review and in the forth- 1849.
coming dissertation ; but I have not said how this was done &* 6
in the anatomical economy, except so far as this that the
heterocercal tail is of a higher type than the homocercal in
the great archetype of nature. As my appendix is not yet
printed, I shall be able to refer to, and perhaps (with your
permission) make a short abstract of, your views of degrada-
tion, which, so far as I have read them, seem to me ad-
mirable
You will find that your opinions on religious points nearly
run parallel with mine. I hold (against the Huttonians) that
Creation had a beginning in time, and that this conclusion is
based on inductive evidence : viz. that man is the last of the
existing order of things, and that animal creations are not
now going on, as Lyell seems to think probable. I have
made this one of the links of an analogical argument in
favour of Christianity.
What I have alluded to ought to have appeared long since.
The spring is the only time of the year I have any leisure for
writing or thinking. In the autumn I am fully engaged with
my lectures, in the winter my time is filled with my clerical
duties at Norwich Cathedral, and in the summer, ever since
1818 until now, I have been out in the field. But alas! during
all the spring months of 1848 and 1849 I was absolutely
crippled both in mind and body without temper, or spirits,
or memory, or power of application to anything requiring
continued thought. Still my little work spite of so many
obstacles in my way would have been out, and you would
have had a copy, about last March had not my views
on certain moral questions expanded. I am writing ex-
pressly for the use of our undergraduates, and I could
not pass these subjects over. So I have said something
of Christian Evidences of systems of Metaphysics of
Mysticism and Rationalism both as dealing with nature and
Revelation and something also of our enlarged plans of
academic study. In doing this I have been forced to wade
S. II. 1 1
162 DEATH OF BISHOP STANLEY,
1849. through mud and mire, and then to halt and wipe my shoes
Et. 64. a u wn ich takes time. My geological task has been done some
time and my first sketch of all these latter subjects has been
some time finished, and part of it is passed through the press ;
but the parts remaining want revision ; and I shall be forced
to postpone this necessary task till my return from the North
after the British Association. And then alas ! I shall be for
ten days pinned down by our Fellowship examination. God
granting me health, I hope to send you and my excellent friend
Dr Fleming copies of my book sometime during the October
term. I am only talking of an embryo : you have sent me
a mature and developed work, for which, after this long
rigmarole, I now return you my most sincere thanks.
Ever truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
P.S. All you have said of the Asterolepis is new and
excellent. McCoy says he is delighted with it. May God
long spare your health and give you all earthly blessings ; and,
may you use them through His help for His glory, and the
good of your fellow-creatures !
Early in September, while Sedgwick was "counting the
hours" till he should reach Birmingham, and have the happi-
ness of again meeting his niece, whom he had not seen since
his long illness, he was startled by the mournful intelligence
that Bishop Stanley was at the point of death. A second
letter, following close on the heels of the first, told him that
all was over. The Bishop was in his /oth year, and had
been in failing health for some time ; but no immediate
danger was anticipated, and he had left Norwich with his
family in the middle of August, to pay a few visits in York-
shire, followed by a short tour in the west of Scotland. They
had reached their farthest point, Brahan Castle in Rossshire,
before he was taken ill. There, however, just when they
were preparing to start homewards, congestion of the brain set
in, and he passed away in a painless sleep on the evening of
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT BIRMINGHAM. 163
Thursday, 6 September. " What this will be to you, I know 1849.
too well ", writes Miss Stanley ; " you have ever been our &* 6 4-
truest friend, and ever will be, whether in trouble or in joy,
and may God bless you for all that you have been to us."
Sedgwick was profoundly affected. He felt that Norwich
henceforward be a changed place to him. "If I may
>peak of my own sorrows now ", he wrote to his niece, who
:new and loved the Stanleys almost as well as he did, " it is a
blow to me, and I am sure you will feel the same. The
lelightful society of the Palace, the charm and solace of my
life, is gone for ever. I meant to leave Cambridge today, but
have had no spirits, and my health is a little suffering." He
pledged, however, to attend the meeting of the British
Lssociation, and on the following day he kept his engage-
ment, but what his feelings were during the week at Birming-
ham may be gathered from the next letter.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
BIRMINGHAM, Sunday evening,
My dear Isabella, September i6th, 1849.
I reached this place on Tuesday evening. On
Wednesday the work began by a great public meeting, when
Professor Robinson of Armagh was called to the chair.
Thursday and Friday we attended the sections as usual. On
Friday we had a great dinner in the Town Hall, and my nerves
were put to a rather severe test. Without any notice from the
President I was called on for a speech ; and as they could not
hear one from the spot where I sat I was forced to go to the
top of the hall, and speak from one of the benches to an
audience of five or six hundred, not to count those in the
galleries....
I should have enjoyed this meeting had I not been in very
bad spirits when I came. In the midst of our labours in the
sections my mind wanders from the subjects before us, and
begins to think of Norwich and the afflicted family at the
Palace. The poor Bishop's body was sent forward in a steam-
vessel, and was to be landed at Yarmouth. I have not yet
II 2
1 64 FUNERAL OF BISHOP STANLEY.
1849. heard whether it has reached Norwich....! believe the funeral
i. 64. w i\\ take pl ac e on Friday. Should it be so I purpose to go to
Norwich on Thursday ; and of course to pay the last mournful
offices of respect to the remains of the Bishop at the grave-
side. What I shall do afterwards I cannot at present say ;
but I still hope to come to Dent for a day or two. Ever,
dearest Isabella,
Most affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
For a moment, on learning that the Bishop was no more,
Sedgwick had considered the loss as it would affect himself
Such thoughts, however, were soon banished by heartfelt solici-
tude for his friends. They were much comforted by his sym-
pathy. "I know not how to thank you for your note", Miss
Stanley said ; "I could not have believed a letter had in it so
much power of consolation. I feel as if you bore our sorrows for
us ; they could scarcely affect you more were they your own. I
could almost wish that you felt less acutely, for I think with
dread of the sorrow which I know that it will be to you."
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
NORWICH, September 2\s\., 1849.
Dearest Isabella,
I have just returned from the dear Bishop's
funeral, and will endeavour to employ a few melancholy
minutes in writing to you....
It was the most touching and striking ceremonial I ever
witnessed. The Mayor and Corporation, in their civic dresses
covered with crape, led the way. Then followed the coffin
and pall-bearers; then the family and mourners, among whom
went Mr Wodehouse and myself. About four hundred
clergymen, in full robes, followed. And lastly, a great
multitude of the respectable inhabitants in the city and
neighbourhood. The procession was so very long, that I
could only see a very small part of it. On reaching the
western door of the Cathedral, there was a short halt. The
doors were then thrown open, and on each side of the central
FUNERAL OF BISHOP STANLEY. 165
aisle of the nave eight hundred children, from the different 1849.
schools of the city, were arranged in triple rows. The ^- *
members of the Corporation descended through the nave to
the choir, followed by the choristers in surplices and scarfs,
chanting a psalm. Then the coffin and pall bearers, followed
immediately by the family, and the rest in turn and in the
order above described. I was told that the clerical body,
walking four abreast, extended from the west door to the
organ-screen. As soon as the choir was filled the door was
shut, and the funeral service was read by Dr Philpott and
the Dean. After which we returned to the grave in the
centre of the nave, keeping the same order as before, the
>rgan pealing the solemn Dead March in Said. At the
;rave-side the choristers sang a solemn dirge, and then
the concluding service was read by the Dean. There were
lousands in the Cathedral. All parts of the triforium were
filled. The organ-gallery was covered with spectators. All
fere in mourning. Many were deeply affected. Many
thousand eyes were dim with tears; and you could hear the
lodest and half-concealed sobs of the little children as you
>assed down the nave, for the Bishop had visited all the
:hools again and again, and was loved by the children; and
it was at his request, expressed in a written paper found in his
study after his death, that they were all invited. The day
beautiful, and between the Palace-gate and the Erping-
ham gate, we marched through, I should think, not less than
20,000 spectators, who were all respectful and silent, and
many of whom were sorrowful. Nothing happened to break
in upon or mar the moral sublimity of the solemn procession
and service 1 ...."
On Christmas Eve after a Term spent in lecturing,
writing the above-mentioned Preface, entertaining the dis-
tinguished French geologist M. de Verneuil, and other
academic occupations Sedgwick had a severe fall from his
1 Printed, with some slight alterations, in Addresses and Charges of Edward
Stanley, D.D. with a Memoir. By his son, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. 8vo. London,
1851, p. 101.
166 BREAKS RIGHT ARM.
1849. horse, and again broke his right arm. " I was riding quickly ",
t. 64. k e wro t- e? ti^ ground was hard frozen, and the horse rolled
upon me, and inflicted dreadful bruises on the right side of
my body, from the sole of my foot to my shoulder. After
recovering from the first shock I crawled to a bank, and was
thankful that my leg, though it gave me great pain, was not
broken. Soon afterwards I found that my right arm was
fractured a little below the shoulder. With great difficulty,
and helped by a man and two boys, I made my way to a
turn-pike gate, where I remained till a fly came to carry me
to Trinity College. The fracture was simple, and the bone
was easily put in right position, and I was bandaged up like
a mummy. My surgeon for some days was more afraid of
the bruises than the fracture : but, thank God, no violent
access of fever followed V Recovery, after such an accident,
was as rapid as could be expected at his age ; but many weeks
elapsed before he could do any serious work, and, anxious as
he was to publish his Discourse in its new form, the confine-
ment was specially irksome. It was cheered by the affectionate
care of his nephew and Mr Romilly, who acted as his
secretaries. If they answered all the letters of condolence
that poured in upon the patient, their office could have been
no sinecure. The Queen and Prince Albert expressed, through
Colonel Grey, " the sincere regret with which they had heard
of the accident"; Mr Hudson Gurney prescribed "a quiet
sojourn at Keswick 2 ", for, said he, "I am told that your
doctors have recommended more quiet and seclusion than
their patient has been willing to submit to"; another friend,
with a turn for satire, sent a sketch of Adam's Second Fall,
and suggested that there ought to be "a special geological
horse that could guide itself, with a perception of good and
evil paths"; and, lastly, some of his numerous god-children
indited a joint letter to their " dear Seddy," regretting that he
was not at Norwich, where they could " help him to pass away
the many hours he would be obliged to spend on the sofa."
1 To Miss Gerard, 19 January, 1850.
2 Mr Gurney's country-house near Norwich.
CHAPTER III.
THE ROYAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. SEDGWICK ASKED TO BE
COMMISSIONER. His HESITATION. BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT
EDINBURGH. VISITS DUKE OF ARGYLL. FIFTH EDITION OF
HIS DISCOURSE (1850). RECEIVES THE WOLLASTON MEDAL.
ACCOUNT OF HIS GEOLOGICAL WORK SINCE 1838. GEOLOGICAL
TOUR IN CORNWALL AND N. WALES (1851). ESTRANGEMENT
FROM MURCHISON. ACTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE GEO-
LOGICAL SOCIETY. VISITS THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE. PUBLI-
CATION OF COMMISSION REPORT (1852).
THE year 1850, on which we are now entering, is memor-
able in the history of Cambridge for the appointment of a
Royal Commission of Inquiry into the state, discipline,
studies, and revenues, of the University and the Colleges.
As Sedgwick was one of the Commissioners, and devoted
much time and thought to the work, it is necessary to say a
few words on the causes which led to such a step on the part
of the government.
It had long been admitted that there were points both in the
constitution and in the educational system of the University,
which might be altered with advantage. From time to time,
even during the previous century, isolated reformers had put
forward proposals for the removal of an abuse, or the intro-
duction of a progressive innovation. Such attempts, though
they ended in failure, and may be thought to have achieved
no result more permanent than the addition of a pamphlet to
1 68 PROJECTS OF REFORM AT CAMBRIDGE.
1850. collections of ephemeral literature, ought in truth to be
Et. 65. regarded as finger-posts set up to mark the road which led to
reform. It is conceivable that that road might have been
prolonged to an almost indefinite length, had not action been
precipitated by the large increase in the number of students
after the close of the continental war. It soon became
evident that it would no longer be possible to restrain so
large a body of young men, representing, to a far greater
extent than heretofore, different classes of the community,
within the narrow limits of mathematics tempered with a
modicum of philosophy ; nor to expect them to submit
without a murmur to the exclusive enactments of the
existing statutes. Again, the passing of the Reform Bill
gave a general impulse to the correction of abuses, and it
seemed only reasonable that national institutions such as
the two Universities should be thoroughly investigated, and
remodelled in conformity with modern ideas. But the
University, as a whole, was averse to change. It has been
already related 1 how a proposal made in 1834 for the
removal of religious tests, though energetically promoted by
many distinguished members of the Senate, and supported
by a large and influential section of the public at large, failed
to command a majority among residents ; and after its re-
jection by the House of Lords it was evident that it would
be mere waste of time to renew the struggle then, even on
the narrow field to which it had been restricted.
Reformers next turned their attention to the studies of
the place. A voluntary Classical Examination (established in
1822), had been the first step taken in this direction. It was
succeeded by proposals, more or less definite, to offer similar
facilities for distinction in theology, history, law, and natural
science. Sedgwick, as we have seen, animadverted generally
on the Cambridge course of study in his Discourse (i832 2 ); a
suggestion for the establishment of five new triposes was
1 Vol. i. pp. 417425.
' 2 Ibid. pp. 402 405.
PROJECTS OF REFORM AT CAMBRIDGE. 169
made by Mr Walsh, a resident Fellow of Trinity College 1850.
(I837 1 ); and Professor Whewell advocated a General Tripos ^ t<6
in all the Inductive Sciences (i84O 2 ). No attempt, however,
was made to give practical effect to these suggestions until
1848, when the influence of Prince Albert led to the establish-
ment of two new Honour Triposes the Moral Sciences
Tripos, and the Natural Sciences Tripos ; together with a
scheme for filling the lecture-rooms of the Professors, by
compelling every candidate for the ordinary degree to pro-
duce a certificate of having attended at least one course of
professorial lectures, and passed a satisfactory examination
in their subject-matter. In The Life of the Prince Consort
we read that from the moment of his election as Chancellor
the Prince began to make himself thoroughly acquainted
with the studies of Cambridge, recognised the importance of
extending them, and discussed with several of the leading
residents as for instance, Whewell, Sedgwick, Philpott the
means by which this end might be achieved with the least
friction and opposition 3 . The establishment of the new
Triposes was succeeded, early in 1849, by the appointment
of a syndicate to revise the statutes of the University.
While internal reformers were thus cautiously picking
their way through the quicksands that beset them, more
drastic remedies were loudly demanded from without. In
December, 1847, Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister,
informed Prince Albert that he was in favour of advising the
Crown to " appoint a Commission to inquire into the state of
Schools and Colleges of Royal Foundation 4 ." A similar
Commission had been moved for in 1837 by Lord Radnor in
the House of Lords, and by Mr Pryme in the House of
1 A Historical Account of the University of Cambridge and its Colleges ; in
a letter to the Earl of Radnor. By B. D. Walsh, M.A. 8vo. Lond. 1837.
2 Of a Liberal Education in General. By W. Whewell, D.D. 8vo. Lond.
1840. Part I. pp. 224228.
3 The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort. By Theodore Martin,
8vo. Lond. 1876. Vol. ii. pp. 114 130.
4 Ibid. p. 1 20.
1 70 PROJECTS OF REFORM AT CAMBRIDGE.
1850. Commons; and again in the latter house by Mr Christie in
& 6 5- 1844. The Prince wrote at length to Lord John, informing
him of what was being done at Cambridge, and expressing
a hope that he would " pause with the recommendation of a
Royal Commission of Inquiry till we have seen whether any
good can be effected in the way now proposed to be
followed 1 ."
Early in 1848 a Memorial to Lord John Russell was
circulated among "graduates and former members of the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge," and to some extent
among Fellows of the Royal Society, setting forth :
That the present system of the ancient English Universities has
not advanced, and is not calculated to advance, the interests of
religious and useful learning to an extent commensurate with the
great resources and high position of those bodies.
That the constitution of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge
and of the Colleges (now inseparably connected with their academical
system) is such as in a great measure to preclude them from introduc-
ing those changes which are necessary for increasing their usefulness
and efficacy.
That under these circumstances, believing that the aid of the
Crown is the only available remedy for the above-mentioned defects,
your Memorialists pray that your Lordship will advise Her Majesty
to issue Her Royal Commission of Inquiry into the best methods of
securing the improvement of the Universities of Oxford and Cam-
bridge.
This document received 224 signatures. Of these Cam-
bridge contributed 133, Oxford 62, and the Royal Society 29.
It is, however, noteworthy that only one resident Fellow of a
Cambridge College appended his name, and only one Profes-
sor. The resident reformers of Cambridge were evidently of
opinion that the time for calling in extraneous assistance had
not yet arrived. This Memorial was presented to Lord John
Russell, 10 July, 1848. He received the memorialists with
the courteous indefiniteness usual on such occasions ; and,
probably out of deference to the wishes of Prince Albert, took
no action in the matter. Two years afterwards (23 April,
1 The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort. By Theodore Martin,
Vol. ii. p. 123.
ISSUE OF A ROYAL COMMISSION. 171
1 850'), Mr James Hey wood, then M.P. for Lancashire, who 1850.
had been one of the prime movers in getting up the Memorial, &* 65.
moved in the House of Commons, that " an humble address
be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty would
be graciously pleased to issue her Royal Commission of
Inquiry into the state of the Universities and Colleges of
Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin." Lord John Russell de-
clined to support the motion, but, he added, "it is certainly
our intention to advise the Crown to issue a Royal Com-
mission to inquire into the state of the two Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge." It is evident, from what subsequent
speakers said, that this announcement took the House by
surprise. That the Government had itself been surprised by
Mr Heywood's action, and had hastily adopted an unwel-
come policy, is evident from Prince Albert's letter to the
Vice-Chancellor, Dr Cartmell (27 May) : " You are already
aware," he says, " that I did not know of the intention of Her
Majesty's Government to advise the issue of a Royal Com-
mission in time, before Lord John Russell's speech in the
House of Commons, to be able to communicate with the
University, or to express any opinion on the proposed
course."
At Cambridge the news of the Prime Minister's intention
was received with alarm and indignation. It is true that he
had spoken in a conciliatory strain. " I am glad," he said,
" that no such Commission was issued some eight or ten years
ago, because, seeing the state in which the studies at the
Universities were ; seeing how inadequate they were to the
then state of knowledge, there would have been some
appearance of hostility in issuing a Commission of Inquiry
at that time. But at present, if persons are appointed who
have belonged to those Universities, who have themselves
been educated at them, and who maintain regard and
reverence for those seats of education ; and if the inquiries
1 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Ser. 3, ex. 691 763.
i?2 ISSUE OF A ROYAL COMMISSION.
1850. they are directed to make are made in a friendly spirit, I
6 5- own I can see nothing but advantage from such inquiries."
Further, he addressed a letter to the Chancellor (8 May)
written in a similar strain. But the University turned a deaf
ear to the voice of the charmer. Within a fortnight after this
letter was written the Vice-Chancellor received an Address,
signed by 156 residents Heads of Colleges, Professors,
Tutors, Lecturers praying him " to take such steps as the
emergency may appear to require, and to consider especially
whether it may not be proper to represent to His Royal
Highness our Chancellor the interference with our freedom,
rights, statutes, possessions, and usages, which appears to be
threatened."
Such was the state of feeling in the University when
Sedgwick received the following letter from Lord John
Russell :
CHESHAM PLACE, May 29, 1850.
My dear Sir,
I have asked the Bishop of Chester, and the Dean of
Ely, to be Members of a Commission to inquire into the state of the
revenues of the University of Cambridge. I feel confident of their
assent, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you will allow me
to place your name before the Queen as that of a distinguished
Professor, who will take part in the labours of the Commission.
I remain, My dear Sir,
Yours very faithfully,
J. RUSSELL.
Sedgwick's sentiments on the whole question, both as it
concerned himself and the University, will be best gathered
from the following letters :
To Lieut. -Co I. Grey.
TRINITY COLLEGE, May yoth, 1850.
My dear Sir,
I write in a distracting hurry, for the morning
post starts in a few minutes, and I must go to consult the
Dean of Ely. Lord John Russell wishes to place my name
on the list of the intended Royal Commission to inquire into
revenues of the University &c. &c.
SEDGWICK'S HESITATION TO JOIN IT. 173
Personally I should dislike the task, and it might deprive 1850.
me of some of my most valued friendships; but, if the Prince ^ t- 6
wishes me to accept it, I will do so ; and, if I do accept it,
then I will try my very best to do my duty in it. Pray learn
His Royal Highness' wishes. I have not the most distant
notion what are our academic Chancellor's feelings on this
matter. Do you not think that an old man, who like myself
has led a kind of half-monkish life at Cambridge, must be
full of prejudices, and little fitted for the task Lord John
would put on me ? On the other hand it might perhaps be
well that some of the Commission should be men who know
Cambridge well, and have a natural leaning in its favour.
Pray excuse this hurried informal note. I hope you will
understand it, and do what is needful for me, and what is
best for Cambridge, under the circumstances.
Very faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To the same.
CAMBRIDGE, May 3 :.$/, 1850.
My dear Sir,
The Dean of Ely was unfortunately absent... and
I again write, not in so hurried a manner as yesterday, but
with very little time before me to save the morning post to
London, for I am naturally anxious to give a definite answer
to Lord John Russell's letter, which I cannot do before I hear
from you.
I have for many years believed that a Commission (Royal
or Parliamentary) must before long come down to the old
Universities, and that no Prime Minister (whatever his
opinions) could long prevent a searching inquiry. About
fifteen years since a Petition to the two Houses of Parliament
was sent from Cambridge, praying for the abolition of religious
tests before conferring academic degrees in Arts, Law, and
Physic. The present Archbishop of York 1 and myself waited
1 Thomas Musgrave, at that time Fellow and Senior Bursar of Trinity
College. Vol. i. p. 4:9.
174 ISSUE OF A ROYAL COMMISSION.
850. on your late father, Earl Grey, with this Petition, which he
L 6 5- soon afterwards presented to the House of Lords. In a long
conversation we held with him at the Treasury, he made
many inquiries into the working of our system, and he
appeared very heartily to agree with a statement made by
myself, viz. that a searching Commission, composed of men
who loved and honoured our old institutions, but were not
blinded to their imperfections, might be of great national
importance, and might give additional strength and security
to Cambridge. I retain the opinions I then expressed to
your honoured father, but not without some modification ;
for our University has now greatly amplified its course of
study, which is perhaps as wide as is expedient ; and a
Committee of Inquiry into a modification of the University
Statutes has been sitting for more than a year, and is making
secure though slow progress. It is known (though of course not
officially published) that the liberal party in this Committee
have, on most important points, had a majority of votes.
Hence I cannot but feel that the intended Royal Com-
mission is rather unfortunately timed. It might well have
come sooner ; or, under present circumstances, it might well
have been put off a year or two, that Parliament might have
seen what the University had done spontaneously. I believe
however that Government had no choice that it is now
impossible to postpone the Commission and that Lord
John Russell has every wish to send a friendly Commission
to the old University. I believe, moreover, that if a friendly
Commission be not appointed now, before long an adverse
Commission might be sent down to us. Entertaining these
views I refused to sign the paper that was forwarded to me
by the Vice-Chancellor ; and I am convinced that the present
opposition to inquiry can only produce doubt, suspicion, and
hostility on the part of those who are seeking for public and
official inquiry....
I am flattered by Lord John Russell's wish to place my
name before Her Majesty, as a fit person for the honour of a
SEDGWICK^S HESITATION TO JOIN IT. 175
place in the Commission ; but I think myself ill fitted for the 1850.
office, for the following plain reasons : ^ 6 5-
1. I have very interrupted health; I am becoming old;
and I never was a good man of business.
2. I have engagements already more than sufficient
to employ my leisure, and all my professional work is greatly
in arrears.
3. I have three works on the stocks one almost ready
to be launched ; but two others in which I have made little
good progress. My honour as a Geological Professor requires
that the accumulated observations of many past years should
not be thrown on one side before they are reduced to some
order.
4. If I accept a place in the Royal Commission I know
full well that I should forfeit the friendship of many of those
among whom I have lived in the interchange of good offices.
I should therefore be continually warped in the performance
of my plain duty as Commissioner, and I might forfeit the
good opinion both of the University and of the Commission,
by halting between two opinions.
5. I have contracted very solemn obligations both to the
University and Trinity College, under the sanction of an oath.
Questions might (and I think would) arise before the Com-
mission in which I might agree with them on general grounds,
but might be compelled to differ from them, on account of
my anterior obligations to the University or my own College.
These were the special matters on which I wished to
consult my friend the Dean of Ely, who has considered them
more than I have done. These are some of my reasons for
thinking that my name ought not to appear in the Com-
mission. You will kindly mention them in whatever way is
best to His Royal Highness. I will, as I stated before, obey
his commands ; but I cannot help expressing a hope that he
will not express a wish that I should accept an office for
which I am unfit, for which I really have not sufficient leisure,
and which might produce serious discomfort, and perhaps
1 76 ISSUE OF A ROYAL COMMISSION.
1850. dishonour, during the remaining years of my academic life.
* 6 5- I have just a spare moment to close this sheet in time for the
early post.
Believe me, My dear Sir,
Very faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
From Lieut. -Col. Grey.
OSBORNE, May 31, 1850.
My dear Sir,
I have this morning received, and have lost no
time in submitting to the Prince, your letter of yesterday.
H.R.H.'s opinion was very much against the propriety of
issuing this Commission. But he had no opportunity of
expressing it in time to have any effect, as he was ignorant
of the intention of Her Majesty's Government till Lord John
made his announcement in the House of Commons.
As, however, notwithstanding all that has since occurred,
Lord John persists in his intention, it is of great importance,
in H.R.H/s opinion, that the Commission should be composed
of men whose station and character would be a guarantee to
the University that the inquiry would be conducted in a
friendly spirit having said which I need hardly add that he
is most anxious that you should accept the offer made to you
by Lord John.
The Prince has expressed very fully in a letter to the Vice-
Chancellor his opinion as to the course which, as the Govern-
ment will not give way in this matter, he thinks it will be for
the advantage and dignity of the University authorities to
pursue under the circumstances, and he would wish you very
much to ask Dr Cartmell to show you his letter. As, however,
H.R.H. intended it to be communicated to the Senate, you
will probably have already seen it.
I trust you have by this time quite recovered the effects
of your accident, and remain,
Very faithfully yours,
C. GREY.
SEDGWICK*S HESITATION TO JOIN IT. 177
To Lieui.-Colonel Grey. 1850.
CAMBRIDGE, June 2nd, 1850. JEt. 65.
My dear Colonel,
I replied yesterday morning to Lord John Russell's
letter, but unfortunately before I received your note of May 31.
Had it reached me before I wrote to his Lordship, my reply
would not have been what it was, for I sent a modified refusal
to act on the Commission, stating, however, that I had
communicated with Prince Albert, and would ultimately be
guided by his commands 1 ....
But there was another reason (and to me a very cogent
one) which I quite forgot to mention in my two letters to
yourself. By the severe letter of Dr Woodward's Will I can
hold no preferment with my Professorship. It is only by the
tacit connivance of the Senate that I continue to hold my
Stall at Norwich, and they could, during any full Term,
compel me either to surrender my Stall or my Professorship.
At present I have nothing to fear from the members of the
Senate, for they know that, at a very great personal expense,
and after thirty laborious geological tours, I have brought
together and placed in the Cambridge Museum, a very noble
Collection. They know also, that I have continued to do my
yearly duty as a lecturer, and that I always have had a large
and earnest class of young men, who were endeavouring to
profit by my lectures. But, if I accept the office of Com-
missioner, I fear the Senate would turn against me, and that
some angry member would call on the Vice-Chancellor to
do his duty by introducing a grace to compel me to fulfil
the condition of Dr Woodward's Will.
I had written so far early this morning, when I was
interrupted, and I have since seen the Vice-Chancellor (who
read to me the Prince's admirable letter), and the Master of
Trinity College, and if I mistake not they think that my fears
of losing my Professorship are chimerical.
1 In the omitted passage Sedgwick recapitulates the reasons given in the
above letter to Colonel Grey, dated 31 May.
S. II. 12
1 78 ISSUE OF A ROYAL COMMISSION.
1850. I must therefore withdraw or palliate the last objection to
t. 65. m y acceptance of the office of Commissioner, and, if His Royal
Highness thinks my other objections (as they are stated in
this and my second letter) invalid, I will then write again to
Lord John, and tell him, that in consequence of the Prince's
wishes, I withdraw my former letter, and am willing to accept
the honour he has offered me.
If I torment you by writing such long letters, I certainly
torment myself, for I have only begun to use my right hand
again for about a fortnight, and it does its work not
without some pain, and much grumbling on the part of my
fractured humerus. I am recovering, but very slowly.
Believe me, my dear Colonel,
Very faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
From Lieut. -Co I. Grey.
OSBORNE, June 2, 1850.
My dear Sir,
I was prevented answering your last letter yester-
day till it was too late to save the post. The Prince read it
with much interest, and, sorry as he is to ask you to do
anything to which you express so much dislike, he cannot
help desiring me again to say how much he should personally
regret your refusal to serve on this Commission, now its issue
appears inevitable. He would fain hope that the fears you
express of weakening the ties of old friendships by such
acceptance would not be realised sure he is that they ought
not to be so that the character which you have established
after so many years' connection with the University ought
to be a sufficient guarantee to those who disapprove most
strongly of the Commission, that you do not accept a place
in it in anything but a friendly spirit. H. R. H. thinks it
most essential that the Commission should be formed of the
friends of the University; and, if the fears of displeasing those
who, having disapproved of the issue of the Commission,
would now resist it to the utmost, were to be allowed as a
SEDGWICK'S HESITATION TO JOIN IT. 179
sufficient excuse for refusal to act upon it, where could those 1850.
friends be found? By accepting, H.R. H. is sure, under ex- ^.6
isting circumstances, that you will best consult the interests
of the University. Much, therefore, as he dislikes urging you
to do anything which is unpleasant to yourself, he cannot
refrain from once more expressing his hope that you may
be induced to answer Lord John's offer in the affirmative.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
C. GREY.
From the same.
OSBORNE, June 4, 1850.
My dear Sir,
I have this morning read to the Prince your letter
of the 2nd inst, which I received yesterday evening.
His Royal Highness would not on any account have you
expose yourself, in consequence of a wish expressed by him,
to any such risk as that which you mention as possibly
attending your acceptance of the proposal made to you by
Lord John Russell. If your fears as to the possible conse-
quences to you are at all well founded, he will at once admit
the validity of the grounds on which you decline to act as a
Royal Commissioner. But this point can only be decided by
yourself, on consultation with those friends who are best
acquainted with your University Regulations and Statutes.
His Royal Highness can only form an opinion upon the
other objections put forward by you ; and on these I need
only refer you, for that opinion, to my former letters, and
repeat that while H. R. H. thinks these objections are not
such as should prevent your acceptance, he believes that your
nomination as one of the Commissioners would have the best
possible effect, and that your services in the Commission
would be most valuable.
I am, however, at the same time to repeat, in the strongest
manner, that nothing could give His Royal Highness more
concern than to think that anything said by him should
12 2
i8o ISSUE OF A ROYAL COMMISSION.
1850. induce you to act in a manner which you believe might be
t. 65. prejudicial to your own interests, and endanger the tenure
either of your Stall or your Professorship.
H. R. H. hears with great concern of your continued
suffering, and trusts, as you say you are recovering, that your
progress may soon be more rapid.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
C. GREY.
To Lieut -Col. Grey.
NORWICH, June $th, 1850.
My dear Colonel,
Your last letter has followed me to this place.
I will not again torment you with a long letter ; indeed I
have nothing more to say, after I have requested you to
convey to the Prince the heartfelt expressions of my thanks
for his condescending kindness towards me, and for his good
opinion of me alas ! a far better opinion of me than I
deserve. I mean, by this post, to write to Lord John Russell,
and to accept the office of Commissioner ; if, after my long
letter to him, he still think me worthy of having my name
submitted to the Queen for her sanction. I trust that His
Royal Highness will permit me to keep your last letter, in
order that I may shew it hereafter to any academic friend
with whom it may be my fate (while the Commission sits) to
come in rude collision. It will prove that I did not seek to
thrust myself into the office. I count the cost of what I am
undertaking, and I know that the Commission will be abused
in good set terms, and without any regard to truth, honour,
or reason.
After the Petition for a mitigation of our Tests (to which
I alluded in a former note) had been presented to the House
of Peers by your late father, a leading article appeared in The
Standard newspaper, which professed to prove three things :
that I was a coxcomb, a sceptic, and a liar. I must, however,
conclude, lest I should seem to confirm the last of the three
SEDGWICK'S HESITATION TO JOIN IT, 181
charges, by contradicting what I have said in the second 1850.
portion of this note. ^ 6 5-
Believe me,
Very faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
From Lieut.- Col. Grey.
OSBORNE, June 7M, 1850.
My dear Sir,
I have read your last letter to the Prince, and His
Royal Highness desires me to thank you most sincerely for
the readiness with which, contrary to your own wishes, you
have acceded to the desire he has expressed through me, that
you should accept Lord John's offer to place you on the
Commission to be named for inquiring into the state of the
Universities. And His Royal Highness hopes that your
acceptance may not entail any of the unpleasant consequences
to yourself, which you still seem to fear. Nothing could give
His Royal Highness more pain; and if, by shewing my letters,
you can remove any misapprehension on the subject, you are
perfectly at liberty to show them to any of your friends you
please. They will clearly prove that so far from this appoint-
ment having been sought by you, it is most reluctantly, and
only in deference to His Royal Highness's expressed wishes,
that you have withdrawn the refusal which you had in the
first instance given to Lord John's offer, and have allowed
your name to be placed on this Commission.
Believe me, My dear Sir,
Ever very truly yours,
C. GREY.
The remaining incidents of this year are recorded with
sufficient minuteness in Sedgwick's letters. It should be
premised that he spent the greater part of the summer at
Cambridge, putting the finishing touches (at last!) to the new
edition of his Discourse. " I have been leading a very dull,
uniform, yet busy, life at Cambridge," he wrote, " but, thank
1 82 QUEEN'S CONCERT.
1850. God ! my book is finished a fat volume of nearly 800
ft..6& pages!" In August came the meeting of the British Asso-
ciation at Edinburgh, at which he read the paper On tlie
Geological Structure and Relations of the Frontier Chain of
Scotland, to which reference has been already made 1 . This
was succeeded by a short tour in Scotland with Murchison.
Lastly, the Michaelmas term at Cambridge brought its usual
tale of work, interrupted, to some extent, by the first sittings
of the Commission.
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
CAMBRIDGE, July 4^, 1850.
Dear Fanny,
So you want to know all about the Queen's party.
We assembled in the great picture-gallery of the Palace, and
the arrival of the Royal guests was the best part of the
evening's work. The old Duke came very early, and looked
as brisk as a young man of twenty-five. He was full of life
and spirits, and looked as if he meant to live for ever. There
were multitudes whom I knew, and multitudes whom I knew
not Court ladies glorious to behold and shining in diamonds
officers of state weather-beaten generals and admirals
foreign ambassadors Turks and Nepaulese !
By the way the Nepaul party were the smartest fellows
there. They wore a kind of Oriental tunic spangled with
lace, a gorgeous sabre, slippers of gay colours, and a kind of
flat turban covered with gems and pearls, above which rose
in front a circle, (about the size of a small saucer) literally
covered with diamonds surrounded by a ring of large emeralds.
Over this blazing circle waved a kind of crest, formed of the
tails of the bird of Paradise. They speak not a word of
English ; but several officers who had served in India were
able to talk with them, and they seemed cheerful and cour-
teous. Their mode of salutation was first a low bow, after
which they raised the right hand to the forehead, and then
gently let it down again.
1 See above, p. 146.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT EDINBURGH. 183
The concert began at ten. The Queen of course sat on 1850.
the front seat, a little on the left side. There was no instru- ^ 6 5-
ment but a grand piano touched by Costa, and we had six or
eight of the first singers from the Opera, including Grisi,
Lablache, and Mario. First act over, the Queen went to the
supper-room. You never saw such a blazing sideboard !
What think you was my royal supper ? Two cups of very
weak black tea and a biscuit. Supper over the Queen
returned to the grand saloon. We made a lane for her,
and she bowed to us all, we bending our backs till they
crackled like castanets. She also shook hands with many of
the ladies. Then followed the second part. So soon as it
was over I walked off. The night was glorious, and the
moon was shining over the towers of the Abbey. I therefore
entered the Park, and walked to the Athenaeum Club down
the Mall enjoying the fresh breeze and the delicious moon-
light. There ! I have done my paper, so good night.
Ever affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
FOOT OF LOCH LOMOND, August i2tk, 1850.
Dearest Isabella,
Here I am at a snug inn, waiting for the next
steamer to convey me up Loch Lomond. I remained at
Cambridge till I had finished my book, and corrected the
last proof-sheet ; so I did not reach Euston Square station,
on my way to Scotland, till the morning of August 2nd.
We ran down to Edinburgh in thirteen hours ! I remember
my weary journey to the Scotch capital in December, 1824,
when we were two entire nights out, and a part of a third
night !
The following day I devoted to several excursions, for
the sections of the British Association did not assemble on
that day. I was domesticated with Bishop Terrot 1 , whom
1 Charles Hughes Terrot, Trin. Coll. B.A. 1813, afterwards Fellow. He was
made Bishop of Edinburgh in 1841.
1 84 TOUR IN SCOTLAND.
1850. you saw at Norwich last year. On Sunday evening I drove
Et. 65. ^0 Woodville, a sweet cottage under the Pentland Hills, now
the property of my excellent friend Dr Alison, but I returned
early next morning. Monday and Tuesday were busy days !
Committee meetings discussions at the sections dinners
public speeches lectures exhibitions of works of art and
science etc. etc. filled them from nine a.m. till midnight.
On Thursday I examined a noble collection of fossils,
and there met the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. I quite
started' when the Duchess came up to me and held out
her hand, telling me I was an old acquaintance. ' You don't
remember me,' she said ; ' but I remember your kindness
to me at the Queen's coronation.' ' Then,' said I, ' you
must be the living representation of a little girl who several
times sat upon my shoulder during the ceremony.' 'Yes,'
she said, ' I am the very person, and without your help
I should have seen nothing. So now you must come and
see me at Inverary Castle.' I said that the visit would
be impossible, however much I should be delighted to wait
on her Grace. Impossible things do, however, come to pass ;
and to-morrow I mean, if all be well, to go to Inverary
Castle. Good morning ! I am interrupted.
Monday ', 3 P.M.
Oh ! what a charming run in a steamer from the foot
of the lake to a little inn called Inversnaid ! But let me
turn back to my journal. After the collection of fossils
I drove with Murchison to the Lord Advocate's, with whom
we remained all night Next morning we went to the
nearest station, and thence by the northern railroad to
Dumblane 1 ....
INVERARY CASTLE, August 14.
Yesterday morning was fine but hazy. We crossed the
lake to Tarbet, and there met Mr Prescott the American
1 The portion omitted describes a visit to the field of Sheriff Muir, Loch
Katrine, etc.
VISITS INVERARY CASTLE. 185
historian. We joined him, and hired an open carriage,
in which we drove through Glen Croe, a very fine Argyleshire
pass ; but not equal to the famous pass of Glencoe, which
I saw in 1827. At the head of Loch Fine we hired a boat,
in which we ran down to the shore just under Inverary
Castle. The scenery is enchanting, but on a less scale
than that we had left behind : but still the country is
much broken, and the hills round the castle are clothed
with magnificent woods, and from the terrace you command
a charming view of Loch Fine. We have had a most kind
reception, and an excellent dinner, and a good deal of chat
afterwards. I had a wrangle with Prescott, who contended
that the blacks are an inferior race of animals, and I think
the company was on my side. About 12 I retired, much
fatigued, but I am up first, and before breakfast I hope to
walk to Inverary to put this letter in the post. After break-
fast the Duke, Mr Howard (Lord Carlisle's brother), and
Sir R. Murchison go to the moors. I must remain behind
to finish my wrangle with Prescott 1 , and perhaps to have
a short drive with the Duchess through the park. To-
morrow, or at latest the day after, I must find my way to
Glasgow, and thence to Dent. God bless you !
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
DENT, August 19, 1850.
...On Friday morning I left Inverary, not without sorrow;
and I had a glorious drive through the Devil's Glen to Loch
Goil, and thence down to Loch Long and the Firth of the
Clyde, and so up to Glasgow. Saturday I started at 10 a.m.
by the express. It does not pull up at Low Gill, so I went
on to Kendal, where I halted a few hours, during which they
contrived to book me for a lecture on Friday next. Will you
come and hear me ? I reached Dent about half past nine,
1 These conversations were not forgotten by Prescott. The Duke of Argyll,
writing to Sedgwick, 28 May, 1852, says: "We have had a letter lately from
Prescott, who always mentions with wholesome respect the terrible Professor of
Geology, to whom he always desires to be remembered."
i86 SENDS DISCOURSE TO PRINCE ALBERT.
1850. and found them all well. Yesterday was dreadfully wet. I
t- 6 5- gave them in the morning an extempore sermon of three
quarters of an hour ! Were you not well away ? So now you
have my latest news. Only this post has brought me a
letter from Mr Me Coy at Cambridge, which will make it
necessary for me to return immediately. Both he and a
London artist are working in my Museum, and at my expense,
and they cannot get on without me. So off I must go in a
few days at longest, and I must put off my Scalby 1 visit
either to October, before I begin my lectures, or till Christmas,
when I can remain a little longer. There is no help for this,
my dear Fan, for the business presses....
To Lieut. -Co I. Phipps.
CAMBRIDGE, September gth, 1850.
My dear Colonel,
The rheumatic gout has laid hold of me, and
mutilated every faculty of mind and body, so that I am at
present hardly responsible for my actions. I have just sense
enough left to order my London bookseller to forward a
bound copy of my brain-monster to Balmoral; and I hope
you will give it to the Prince with the best expressions of
respect and gratitude which you can muster on the occasion
in my behalf...
The Prince will never think of reading my book through ;
but should he turn over certain pages, and see the freedom
with which I have attacked some great German names, I
hope he will not be angry with me. I think His Royal
Highness (should he glance at the extracts from Oken) will
see that I have quoted matter to justify all that I have said.
In every branch of learning and science the Germans are
fighting in the front rank, and doing inestimable service ; but
my conviction is that some of their speculative philosophers
have done, and are doing, much mischief.
The Royal University Commission is now out, and I
rejoice to see the names of the persons with whom I shall
1 The living near Scarborough held by the Rev. James Sedgwick. Vol. i. p. 38.
FIFTH EDITION OF DISCOURSE. 187
have to act. They are all my personal friends; and we shall, 1850.
I trust, be able to do our duty without wrangling, or any ^t. 65.
material difference of principle or opinion....
Ever truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
The Commissioners to whom Sedgwick refers were the
Lord Bishop of Chester (Dr Graham, formerly Master of
Christ's College); Dr Peacock, Dean of Ely; Sir J. F. W.
Herschel ; and Sir John Romilly. They appointed as their
secretary Mr Bateson of St John's College, afterwards Master.
It would be beside our purpose to give a detailed account
of the "brain-monster" alluded to in the last letter. The
Discourse has been already criticised 1 ; and Sedgwick's object
in writing the Preface has been described by himself in one
of his letters to Hugh Miller*. Still on account of the
author's natural interest in a work on which he had bestowed
such protracted labour, as well as the importance of the
subjects discussed in it we must briefly describe the fresh
subject-matter, from the mere extent of which the new
edition may be regarded as an original work.
It was obvious that a Discourse on tJie Studies of the
University, preached eighteen years before, could not be
republished without some prefatory remarks. The argument
from design, as stated in the first section, needed extension
and reinforcement in consequence of the popularity of such a
book as the Vestiges; " the mischief of modern pantheistic
doctrines when applied to physical, moral, and religious
questions 3 /' had to be exposed ; while the second and third
sections, treating of the literary, ethical, and metaphysical
studies of the University, had lost much of their point
through recent academic changes, and required explanation
and defence.
This Preface, or Preliminary Dissertation, is divided into
two parts. The first begins with a formal refutation of the
1 See above, Vol. i. pp. 402 405. 2 Printed above, p. 159.
3 Preface, p. cccxxiii.
1 88 FIFTH EDITION OF DISCOURSE.
850. views advanced in the Vestiges ; and is, in fact, little more
t. 65. th an tn e article in The Edinburgh Review expressed in
somewhat different language, and expanded so as to be an
answer to a second work by the same author called Expla-
nations, in which a reply to the Edinburgh Reviewer and
other critics had been attempted. The sections dealing
"with the author's pretended facts," are succeeded by a
discussion of his " adopted philosophy," and, says Sedgwick,
" my remarks apply to the whole school of modern Mate-
rialists, so far as I comprehend their doctrines." This leads
to the " conditions of the mind that have led men to deny a
Personal Creator," atheism, pantheism, the absurdities of
phrenology, and the support which the author of the Vestiges
sought to obtain for his theory from the calculating machine
invented by Mr Babbage. From these subjects we pass, by
a somewhat abrupt transition, to the ideal theory of Locke,
and to idealism generally. Sedgwick was led to this partly
by what he had advanced in the Discourse, partly by the
recent appearance of Oken's Physio-Philosophy in an English
dress under the auspices of the Ray Society. The lofty
flights of the transcendental German,
who taught to his profit and fame
That something and nothing are one and the same,
are treated with unsparing ridicule. " I have read his Work,"
says Sedgwick, " and I have striven to perceive some glimmer-
ings of steady light among the mists of his first sixty or seventy
pages ; and nothing have I seen but an ignis fatuus playing,
here and there, on a darkness that is palpable and impenetra-
ble 1 ." Justice is, however, done to Oken so far as his specula-
tions were based on experiment, and the next section gives a
sketch of the vertebral theory of the skull, with the archetype
and homologies of the vertebrate skeleton, as developed by
Owen from Oken's observations. Such a theory, as exhibiting
evidence of a scheme conceived in the Divine Mind from the
beginning, and adapted to the wants of His creatures in
1 Preface, p. cciii.
HISTORY OF CREATION. 189
successive acts of creation, was unhesitatingly accepted by 1850.
Sedgwick. But on this point and especially on the geo- ^ t< 6
logical questions with which the theory had to deal he shall
speak for himself.
In every successive Fauna of Geology we find the same kind of
animal subordination we meet with now in the living world ; and the
very earliest Genera and Orders were not organically inferior to the
Genera and Orders of this day which we derive from corresponding
grades in the scale of Nature. Nay, sometimes the primeval Genera
and Orders are organically superior to their corresponding types in
the living world. Again, the general organic plan of Nature has
been at all times not merely analogous, but identical. If Genera,
Orders, and Classes be now distinct and separate, they were equally
distinct and separate in all periods of the old world. There is no
development on the lines of organic ascent such as to produce
confusion : but if the theory of development were true, there must
be, on some parts of the organic scale, such a blending and penetra-
tion of types as would blot out and obliterate our lines of separation
between Genera and Orders and Classes. But we look in vain
for any semblance of such obliteration : and if we try to complete
our present scale, by interpolating within it the organic types of the
old world, we find no incongruity in our task. The oldest types fall
into their place in the general scale, as naturally as the newest. We
may, by this interpolation, improve and perfect our general scale ;
but we break not down the barriers between Genera and Orders and
Classes. They continue as strong and as abruptly marked as they
were before.
The elevation of the Fauna of successive periods was not there-
fore made by transmutation, but by creative additions ; and it is by
watching these additions that we get some insight into Nature's true
historical progress. Judging by our evidence (and by what else have
we any right to judge ?) there was a time when Cephalopoda were the
highest types of animal life. They were then the Primates of this
world ; and, corresponding to their office and position, some of them
were of noble structure and gigantic size. But these creatures were
degraded from their rank at the head of Nature, and Fishes next took
the lead : and they did not rise up in Nature in some degenerate
form, as if they were but the transmuted progeny of the Cephalopoda;
but they started into life (if we are to trust our evidence) in the very
highest ichthyic type that ever was created. Following our history
chronologically, Reptiles next took the lead at the head of Nature
not by transmutation, but by creative addition and (with some
almost evanescent exceptions) they flourished during the countless
ages of the Secondary Period as the lords and despots of the world ;
and they had an organic perfection corresponding to their exalted
rank in Nature's kingdom ; for their highest Orders were not merely
great in strength and stature, but were anatomically raised far above
any forms of the Reptile Class now living in the world. We have
HISTORY OF CREATION.
1850. seen, however, that this Class was, in its turn, to lose its rank at the
Et. 65. head of Nature ; and what is more, we have seen that it underwent
(when considered collectively) a positive organic degradation before
the end of the Secondary Period, and (if we may trust our evidence)
this took place countless ages before terrestrial Mammals of any
living type had been called into being. Mammals were added next
(near the commencement of the Tertiary Period), and seem to have
been added suddenly. Some of the early extinct forms of this Class,
which we now know only by ransacking the ancient catacombs of
Nature, were powerful and gigantic ; and we believe they were
collectively well fitted for the place they filled. But they, in their
turn, were to be degraded from their place at the head of Nature ;
and she became what she now is, by the addition of Man. By this
last addition she is more exalted than she was before. Man stands
by himself the despotic lord of the living world : not so great in
organic strength as many of the despots that went before him
in Nature's chronicle, but raised far above them all by a higher
development of the brain by a framework that fits him for the
operations of mechanical skill by superadded reason by a social
instinct of combination by a prescience that tells him to act
prospectively by a conscience that makes him amenable to law
by conceptions that transcend the narrow limits of his vision by
hopes that have no full fruition here by an inborn capacity of
rising from individual facts to the apprehension of general laws
by a conception of a Cause for all the phenomena of sense and
by a consequent belief in a God of Nature.
Such is the history of Creation. It is not the dream of a disordered
fancy, but an honest record of successive facts that were stamped by
Nature's hand on the chronicle of the material world. Where our
chronicle is broken and defective, we may acknowledge our ignorance
and be silent ; or we may speculate analogically on points where true
historical evidence is wanting. We may, in part at least, endeavour
to explain what is unknown by what is known ; for we believe that
Nature has been consistent with herself. We are certain that there
have been great successive changes in the surface of the earth that
some of these changes were slow and gradual that others were
brought about by the sudden eruption of the pent-up powers of
Nature, and were comparatively rapid and violent. But each change
was in subordination to the general laws of material Nature, and was,
we believe, but a prelude to the material conditions which followed,
till physical Nature became what she now is. We also believe that
the successive creations of the organic kingdoms were in harmony
with these physical changes in the surface of the Earth and that
the Fauna of each period formed a kind of prelude to the Fauna
that was to follow, till living Nature became what she now is. Nay,
we can sometimes discern this kind of organic relationship or analogy,
not merely in a broad statement of facts (like some of those above
enumerated), but in a closer comparison of the Genera and Orders
that enter into the Fauna of two successive periods. Thus the
gigantic Edentata (the Glyptodons and Mylodons, &c.) in the super-
PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY. 191
ficial drift of South America, formed a prelude to the part taken up, 1850.
in our days, by the burrowing Armadillos and the climbing Sloths ; ^ t- 5
and the gigantic Marsupials in the caverns of New Holland have a
like relation to the Kangaroos now bounding on the surface of the
country. But, while we admit all this, we are not so mad as to
affirm that the giants of the former period were the natural progenitors
of their dwarfish representatives in the living world. What we do
believe is, that the past history of Nature, as it is seen in her
Geological records, though strange and altogether unanticipated in
the speculations of human reason, is consistent and coherent ; and
that, before the creation of all worlds, there was an archetype of
Nature (dead as well as living, past as well as present) in the
prescient mind of God 1 .
In the last section of this first division of the Preface
Sedgwick returns once more to his old antagonist ; reasserts
the argument for final causes ; discusses the credibility of
miracles and the rival yiews of Paley and Hume ; and finally
proclaims induction to be " the fountain of all material truth."
The second division of the Preface opens with a sketch of
the evidences of Christianity. The reader is not to expect a
formal treatise but only a reference to one or two points
which "seem to arise quite naturally out of the previous
discussions a series of short hints, thrown out in sincerity
and good-will, for the student's guidance 2 ." This sketch
is succeeded by a masterly exposition of the scope and
meaning of the principal arguments advanced in Butler's
A nalogy.
This sketch concluded, Sedgwick passes to the existing
condition of the University moral, intellectual, and material.
He begins with the probable results of the introduction of the
new Triposes of which he cordially approved. " Some men,"
he says, " fear that our old and severe intellectual discipline
may suffer by these changes. Had I partaken of these fears,
and believed that our stern mathematical studies, which ever
since Newton lived amongst us have been the glory of
Cambridge, would descend from their high place, as a natural
consequence of the Graces last year passed by the Senate,
I should then have been almost willing to cross England
1 Preface, pp. ccxv ccxix. 2 Ibid. pp. cclvi, ccciii.
192 PROGRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY.
1850. barefoot to record my vote against them. But we have
Et. 65. nothing to fear from this quarter. Our highest prizes will
still be carried off by those who reap their honours in the
Mathematical and Classical fields.... It is not excessive activity,
but an unhealthy deathlike stagnation, that is the bane of an
Academic body like our own 1 ." Thence he passes to the
beneficial labours of the Philosophical Society, and their
practical results in Professor Airy's work at Greenwich; to the
extension of the Museums belonging to the University, and
of the buildings of the Colleges ; to the increase in the
number of the undergraduates, and the changes for the better
in their pursuits and habits since he came to Cambridge at
the beginning of the century. From the condition and
prospects of the University the transition to the religious
movements of the day is easy and obvious ; and the Preface
concludes with a denunciation of the Oxford Movement and
the principles of the Tracts for the Times, then recently
published. In writing this Sedgwick was doubtless stimu-
lated by his dislike of the Cambridge Camden Society,
the later developments of which he had strenuously not
to say violently opposed. The unfortunate Society comes
in for its share of adverse criticism 2 .
Here the Preface ends, but not the volume ; for, as soon as
Sedgwick's arm was sufficiently recovered to allow him to
resume his pen, he set to work upon A series of notes to the
preface, which occupy one hundred and forty-six pages at the
end of the Appendix. They deal with most of the important
subjects touched upon in the Preface, strengthening and
explaining the positions there brought forward, or supplying
valuable illustrations.
The book, like the article in The Edinburgh Review, is
a storehouse of arguments against transmutation of species ;
and further, against the tendencies of modern speculation
towards materialism. As such it will have a permanent
historical value. But it must always be remembered, in
1 Preface, p. cccxxv. - Preface, p. cccxcvii.
DEFECTS IN 7 HE DISCOURSE. 193
justice to Sedgwick, that his arguments ought to be weighed 1850.
against the statement of facts as then known, and the ^ 6 5-
evidence then offered ; and not against the data now
available in support of theories of evolution and interpre-
tation. At the same time we must allow that the form of
the book is unfortunate. The perpetual recurrence to the
Vestiges gives it an air of having been written to serve one
purpose only, and that a transient one ; while the dispersion
of the matter through the Discourse, the Preface, the Appendix,
and the Supplement to the Appendix, wearies the reader, and
prevents him from feeling the full force of his author's argu-
ments. Sedgwick's friends were not slow to perceive, and to
draw his notice to, these defects. Lord Brougham spoke of
"the somewhat amorphous at least oddly-proportioned
book ; " Professor Owen wrote : " It reminds me of the
germ of a goodly tree between two fat cotyledonal leaves.
I hope you may be spared to expand it into a form agreeable
with its true nature and importance, and bearing a title that
would attract hundreds to possess and profit by it, who now,
I fear, will scarcely suspect that in an Essay on the Studies of
the University there is the best work on the principles of
Revealed and Natural Religion extant in our language ; "
and Mr W. J. Conybeare, son to his old geological friend and
teacher, regretted that "discussions of so much value, and
of such permanent interest, should have been made to appear
dependent upon so flimsy a book as the Vestiges. May we
not hope," he said, " that some time or other you will recast
all that part and publish it in a separate and independent
form ? The extracts from Hegel and Oken are most
delicious, specially the latter, over which my wife and I
have enjoyed some very exhilarating laughs."
The arrangement of the Woodwardian Museum, to which
Mr Me Coy had given his time almost uninterruptedly since
1846^ and which he had fortunately nearly completed, was
in this year brought to an abrupt close by his appointment
1 See above, p. 118.
S. II. 13
194 WOODWARDIAN MUSEUM.
1850. to a Professorship in the Queen's College at Belfast. His
Et- 65. W ork in Cambridge had been thoroughly congenial to him,
and he left it with unfeigned regret. " I feel as if parting
from all I care for, leaving you and the Museum," he wrote
to Sedgwick, soon after his arrival at Belfast 1 . His engage-
ments there, however, did not wholly sever his connection
with Cambridge. He had undertaken in 1849, by a private
arrangement with Sedgwick, to describe the British Palaeozoic
Fossils in the Woodwardian Museum ; and considerable
progress had been already made with the text and illustra-
tions of the proposed work. They were both anxious to
complete it, and therefore Me Coy undertook to spend the
spring and summer months of each year in Cambridge. It
was then expected that no long period would elapse before
the whole could be published ; but from various causes it was
frequently retarded, and was barely finished when Me Coy
accepted a Professorship at the University of Melbourne in
1854. To this work, and to the important preface contributed
by Sedgwick, we shall return in a future chapter ; meanwhile
it is gratifying to record that the arrangement of the Museum
received cordial recognition from the Inspectors of 1850.
After noticing the condition of Dr Woodward's cabinets, they
proceed :
We cannot let the opportunity pass without noticing the valuable
Collection, commenced by the late Professor Hailstone, and so
greatly augmented by the exertions of the present Woodwardian
Professor and his friends. The classification, which is now almost
entirely completed, does the greatest credit to the accurate know-
ledge and unwearied industry of Mr M c Coy. The arrangement
which he has made under the judicious directions of the Professor
1 Sedgwick had a very high opinion of McCoy. Writing to Murchison,
6 October, 1851, respecting the post in the British Museum afterwards filled by
Owen, he says : '"Whatever happens, it is, I verily believe, a matter of the very
first importance to secure to the British public in some form or other the services
of a man like McCoy an excellent naturalist, an incomparable and most philo-
sophical palaeontologist, and one of the steadiest and quickest workmen that ever
undertook the arrangement of a Museum. You have seen his Cambridge work,
and where is there anything to be named with it, either in extent or perfection of
arrangement!"
ON FOXEfGN TRAVEL. 195
will render the Museum practically of the greatest use and value 1850.
henceforward to all those who are studying the subject; and we ^t. 65.
consider that the thanks of the University are due to the Professor
for having secured the assistance of so able a man, and more
particularly when we recollect that this new order of things has
been almost entirely effected at the personal expense of the Professor
himself.
At the same time it is to be hoped that some means may be
hereafter found of more liberally assisting him in adding to and
perfecting this most valuable Collection. Several valuable fossils
have been in the present year added to the Museum from the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh. We would suggest that the cost
of these should, if possible, be defrayed by the University.
The two following letters will conclude our account of the
year 1850.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
NORWICH, October \st, 1850.
...I have seen most of the places you mention ; but only
looked at them over my left shoulder, for I was travelling to
see the rocks, and not to halt at the cities. I agree with you
that the Dresden gallery is the most interesting of all you
have had the happiness of studying. Next to the Madonna
di San Sisto (which is out of all comparison the most glorious
painting I ever beheld) the most valuable pictures at Dresden
are the Correggios, though I did not admire them so much
as I wished to do, and I think you are right in selecting his
Magdalen as the object of your special love. And what a
glorious city is Prague ! Edinburgh, Prague, and Lyons are,
in my mind, the three most interesting and picturesque cities
I have ever seen. Is there not something oriental in the
ponderous barbaric grandeur of the palaces of Prague ?
Saxon Switzerland I have seen far better than you have
done, for I hammered my way through it, partly on foot.
The greatest pleasure of a tour is not at the moment
of first enjoyment, but in the store of knowledge and
happy thoughts with which it fills the mind. And these
happy memories become a part of yourself, and no one can
rob you of them. Besides, your tour will give you new
sympathies with friends and with books, which are your
132
196 ON CHURCH POLITY.
1850. private friends. But these things we can talk about till we
JEt. 65. are tired rest and then talk about them again and again.
Thank God ! you are come back safe, and I trust with
renovated bodily health....
To Rev. G. H, Ainger.
CAMBRIDGE, December 26t/i, 1850.
My dear George,
...Many thanks for your sermon. I agree heartily
with most of it, though I think I should not agree with you
about the right of private judgement. You are too much of a
high churchman for me. If the right did not exist our Reforma-
tion has no principle to stand on. I adopt, on this point, Bishop
Marsh's views, which I think are sound, and reasonable, and
true. The right of private judgment may have led to folly
and schism and fanaticism. But what of that ? Liberty
leads to republicanism and licentiousness, and are we on that
account to seek the despot's collar ? I verily believe the
world. I mean the Christian world, would be ten times worse
than it is were it kept to the semblance of uniformity by
church authority. Forced unity is not spiritual unity. I
take for my definition of the Church Catholic the words of
one of our canonical prayers, the 'bidding prayer' (as it is
sometimes called), used before the sermon on state occasions,
and always in Cathedrals. In my definition the orthodox
definition of our Church a good sincere Presbyterian is as
true a member of the Catholic Church as is a member of the
Church of England. Don't think that I undervalue our
Church polity, and don't think it better than the Presbyterian.
'Tis not so. But Church polity is not Christianity ; it is
only one of the helps to it...
I caught my terrible cold at Windsor, whither I went the
day of our Address 1 to the Queen. We had a gracious
reception, and a most regal lunch ; but they did not save me
1 An address against Papal Aggression, presented to the Queen 10 Decem-
ber, i8=;o.
ON CLARISSA HARLOWE. 197
from one of the worst colds I have ever endured within the 1851.
period of my memory ^ l - 66.
Ever, my dear George,
Your affectionate friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
The winter of 1850 51 was spent by Sedgwick, as so
many previous winters had been, in solitude and sickness.
In the previous autumn he had suffered from his "first
autumnal attack 1 " of gout, which hitherto had afflicted
him only in the spring, but henceforward was to be his
unwelcome attendant during the greater part of the year.
Subsequently a long and wearisome attack of influenza kept
him a prisoner under doctor's orders. As usual under these
circumstances, he took to literature. Accident led him to
Richardson. " Well ! " he wrote, " it struck me that, after all,
Clarissa might be made into a gentle pihe de resistance a
kind of cushion for my cold to lean upon ; so I got it from
the public library, and once more blubbered over it almost as
much as I did about fifty years since. Indeed I read it pretty
honestly, only skipping a little here and there, when the author
proses too much for a modern reader. It is a wonderful
novel, and exactly answered its purpose, but you must not
attempt to read it. Tis infinitely too long, unless you have
an influenza of six weeks, and nothing better to do, which I
trust will never be the case so long as you live 2 ."
The year which began thus inauspiciously was one of
bustle and excitement, and Sedgwick, whether well or ill,
was compelled to lead what he once happily described as " a
shuttlecock existence." His duties as Commissioner took
him frequently to London, and compelled him to pass long
and weary days in Downing Street ; while his position as
Prince Albert's secretary entailed upon him numerous social
engagements which he enjoyed while they lasted, but which
1 To R. I. Murchison, December, 1850.
2 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 26 January, 1851.
VI S1J TO WINDSOR CASTLE.
851. occupied his time and over-taxed his strength. He was
t. 66. beginning to feel his years, and, had he not been an unthrifty
economist of his powers and his time, he would have sought
repose rather than fresh employment.
Early in February he spent two days at Windsor Castle.
Her Majesty and the Prince received him with gracious
kindness : " everything went off as smooth as silk ; everybody
seemed perfectly comfortable and at his ease ; and the Queen
seemed the merriest and happiest of the whole party. She
looks the picture of good health, and realises that charming
description in the Bible where a woman is called 'a joyful
mother of children ' V
The next letter needs no explanation.
ATHENAEUM CLUB, February izt/i, 1851.
My dear Mrs Stanley,
I had a very busy day yesterday beginning very
early and ending rather late and I returned to Suffolk Street
in a state of great fatigue. But warm tea did wonders, and
after dissolving my curdled brain in its fumes, I sat in an
arm-chair, put my legs on another, and read through the
Memoir* without halting ; except indeed that I was sometimes
stopped by a sudden dimness in the sight when the tale told
me of events that must ever live in my memory, and reminded
me of persons whom I loved, and whom I must never see
again in this world. I think the Memoir excellent. I
wished some parts to be expanded ; to know, for example,
a little more of the Bishop's domestic life, and to see one or
two specimens of his correspondence with those whom he
most loved and confided in. But perhaps in this respect I
was unreasonable....
In the place where the Memoir appears it is but an
introduction to the Essays &c. that follow (Essays by the
way is not the right word ; but let it pass). The Memoir
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 6 February, 1851.
2 Arthur Stanley's Memoir of his father. See above, pp. 164, 165.
MEMOIR OF BISHOP STANLEY. 199
therefore is confined to the unfolding of his clerical character, 1851.
and his practical views of clerical duties, as shown in his ^ 66 -
parochial life at Alderley ; and afterwards to the illustration
of his principles and conduct during the twelve years of his
episcopal administration at Norwich. Read with this limita-
tion, the Memoir is excellent. It brings out his motives and
character, and puts them exactly in the right point of view.
Hence it will do his memory good service ; and it will, I
trust, do a still higher service by helping to teach us lessons
of liberality (in the right sense of that word), and mutual love,
and forbearance of rash judgments in judging one of another
on points where we cannot make up our minds to agree.
In all the essential points of practical conduct in clerical
life the dear Bishop's example was admirable. He was a
specimen of a warm-hearted, high-minded, liberal, Christian
gentleman, such as we (alas !) very seldom can meet with,
or even hear of; and Arthur has done well in perpetuating
the influence of such an example ; which may tell upon,
and do good to, and liberalize and christianize (as a secondary
help) the clergy of the Church of England long after all
those persons are dead and gone who (like myself) have had
the happiness of knowing and loving their diocesan.
This is exactly the time for such a biography when men
are idolizing shadows, and mistaking what all men of sense
think unessential, and what many think but fooleries and
fopperies, for the simple truths of the Gospel, and a life of
faith and purity and love.... I think there should have been a
sentence or two on his power as a good-tempered and
humourous artist I return the book with my very best
thanks. I daresay when I am in Cambridge this evening
I shall find a copy on my table from my bookseller.
It may seem very strange, but it is true, that when you or
Miss Stanley asked me about the letter 1 from which Arthur
has taken an extract near the end of the Memoir, I had
forgotten all about it. And even now I cannot bring before
1 Printed above, p. 164.
200 RECEIVES THE WOLLASTON MEDAL.
1851. my mind's eye the place where I wrote it. I doubt not that
Et. 66. i wro te honestly ; yet the extract is inaccurately expressed
in one sentence, and another contains an untruth. The
choristers did not chant a Psalm as I have stated ; but they
did chant the solemn sentences in the opening of the service.
How hard it is to be right in all minute points, even for an
eyewitness who has no motive or wish to write anything but
plain truth ! May God bless you, my dear Mrs Stanley, and
make you happy. The Memoir may revive painful remem-
brances, but it must and ought to make you happy, by
giving you new materials for Christian hope, and steady
anticipations, through God's favour, of enjoying hereafter
the society of those you loved here in the presence of a
Redeemer, and in a place where sorrow has no entrance, where
wailing is never heard and tears are for ever dried from the
eye.
Ever affectionately and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
At the Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society
(21 February) the President, Sir Charles Lyell, presented to
Sedgwick the Wollaston Medal, awarded to him by the
Council " for his important and original researches in Geology,
more especially for his Memoirs inserted in the Transactions
of the Geological Society of London and Philosophical
Society of Cambridge, developing the structure of the British
Isles, the Alps, and Rhenish provinces."
This public recognition of Sedgwick's position as a geo-
logist suggests an examination of the work accomplished by
him since 1838 ; and it must be understood that what we are
now about to say is a continuation of our remarks at the close
of the former volume *.
The period between 1838 and 1851 was important in many
ways. Though Sedgwick did not so frequently publish the
fresh results of what he had just been doing, he still continued
1 Vol. i. ch. xi.
GEOLOGICAL PAPERS, 18381851. 201
to bring forward much that was new, and much that was the 1851
result of original research. He was now engaged chiefly in &* ^
filling in details, in defending the positions he had formerly
taken up, and in correcting errors into which he had fallen,
either from generalising on insufficient data, or from having
too hastily accepted the incorrect sections of others.
The beginning of this period was memorable for the
appearance of that splendid work The Silurian System of
Murchison. Carefully worked out, fully illustrated, giving
the results of an examination of the fossils by some of the
best palaeontologists of the day, and embodying the results
of much of the lifelong work of such shrewd observers as
Lewis of Aymestry and Williams of Llandovery, it is a work
the publication of which may well be claimed as an epoch-
marking event in the history of scientific progress.
The Geological Society would naturally try to avoid
the confusion arising from the same names being used in
different senses, or from different names being applied to what
the consensus of original observers pronounced to be the
same; and their Publication Committee would, where possible,
modify the terminology of papers referred to them in accord-
ance with the received nomenclature when such a course did
not alter the general statement of facts ; and, where the results
of observation did not accord with the theories involved in
such nomenclature, would, in the interests of science, en-
deavour to induce the authors to alter or suppress such parts
of the paper. This would not produce immediate results.
The bearing of it would only become apparent by degrees.
But, as Sedgwick's Bala beds included nearly the whole of
Murchison's Lower Silurian, it was obvious that sooner or
later the difficulty of correlating the rocks of North and South
Wales on the lines so far followed would be seen to be in-
superable.
This explanation is necessary in order to understand
Sedgwick's Cambrian and Silurian papers of this date. Some
of the difficulties arise from his straining the evidence to try
202 GEOLOGICAL PAPERS, 18381851.
1851. to make it fit with sections in the accuracy of which he
JEt. 66. cou id not but believe. "If that be true, then it must be thus
explained," was what he had to say over and over again.
Further, we find that his papers and illustrations are absurd
in many respects unless we remember that a new nomencla-
ture was substituted for his in many cases. For instance he
was made to say that the Lower Silurian stretched from Bala
Lake to the Menai Straits as shewn in the Map appended to
his paper read before the Geological Society in November,
1843*. That map shows what Sedgwick included in his
' Protozoic,' but not what either Sedgwick or any one else
then called Lower Silurian. The truth was that Mr Henry
Warburton and the Publication Committee did not know the
ground, nor understand the points of difference. No one did
at that time except Murchison and Sedgwick themselves.
There is plenty of internal evidence, even if we had not other
means of knowing it, that Sedgwick did not. finally revise
this paper or its illustrations; for there are foolish mistakes,
such as making Section I. start from Arenig Fawr instead
of from the other Arenig ; the omissions on the map of the
Berwyn synclinal of Silurian rock, though it is clearly shown
and marked a on the sections, and referred to in the text ;
common names wrongly spelt in the tables and elsewhere, and
so forth. In this paper, however, we find Sedgwick working
out the details of the Bala Series, and pointing out, by
reference to fossils determined for him by Salter and Sowerby,
the succession and reappearances of the different zones.
The work that chiefly occupied his thoughts and time was
the Cambrian and Silurian ; but he did not confine himself
to that, for he had the Geology of the neighbourhood of
Cambridge forced upon his attention, and he was still
following up the Devonian with Murchison. They had
proposed, as explained in their previous papers, to place all
the older slates of Devonshire, and a considerable part of the
slate rocks of Cornwall, in a group intermediate between the
1 Published in the Journal of the Geological Society, Vol. I. pp. 522.
GEOLOGICAL PAPERS, 18381851. 203
Carboniferous and Silurian Systems, and to the rocks which 1851.
they had so defined they had given the name Devonian ^ 66 -
System ; and now they visited together Belgium, the Rhenish
provinces, the Hartz &c., in order to ascertain whether in any
of these countries there was a group of strata in a position
between the Carboniferous and Silurian Systems and con-
taining the same fossils as those found in the Devonian rocks
of England.
Sedgwick was much interested in this attempt to correlate
the rocks of the long traverse they made from the Thurin-
gerwald to the north flank of the Fichtelgebirge, the country
so celebrated from the labours of Count Miinster, and in the
attempt to bring the rocks of that area into relation with
their previous observations. With a view to studying the
fossil evidence he acquired the large series of specimens
selected out of the duplicates in Count Miinster's collection
which is now in the Woodwardian Museum 1 . The working
out of the Devonian Rocks was much advanced by this
paper ; but that some points remained unexplained is not to
be wondered at, when we remember the difficulty that is still
felt in determining the exact equivalents of the Hercynian,
and the various explanations that have been offered in recent
times of the occurrence of the Graptolite shales in the Hartz
near Thale. The results of this excursion appeared in the
Transactions of the Geological Society as a long paper of
ninety pages, with map, sections, and plates of fossils, the
palaeontological part of which was mostly contributed by
d'Archiac and de Verneuil.
We know from Sedgwick's printed syllabus of lectures
(1832), and from the minutes of the Cambridge Philosophical
Society, that he had long been watching the various artificial
operations which revealed the geological structure of the
neighbourhood of Cambridge. The Fens, and the attempts
to reclaim them, were always a favourite subject of his, and
the artesian wells made by piercing the Gault, or as it was
1 The history of this acquisition is related above, p. 18.
204 GEOLOGICAL PAPERS, 18381851.
1851. then written, Gait, furnished a very suggestive theme. In
Et. 66. jg^cj j^ reac j a p a p er before the British Association, which
met that year at Cambridge under the Presidency of Sir John
Herschel, On the Geology of tlte neighbourhood of Cambridge,
including the Formations between the chalk escarpment and the
great Bedford Level. The sections drawn for this paper are
still preserved. It forms the first sketch for most of the work
that has since been published on the district.
His friendship for Wordsworth perhaps chiefly determined
his publishing so much work on the North of England in this
period, for he had promised him a sketch of the geology of the
Lake District for his guide-book ; and three editions of this
passed through his hands between 1843 an d 1846. We need not
give any lengthy notice of this work, as it embodies what has
been generally accepted as the classification of the rocks of
that area. Some points, however, require explanation. In
attempting correlation there was still the great source of error
in the confusion as to the age and position of the Caradoc
Sandstone, which was further increased because the fact had
not been observed that the flaggy beds above Ireleth, like
those near Coniston, ranged from the Upper Bala to high up
in the Silurian.
Besides the summaries given in Wordsworth's Guide,
Sedgwick read a paper before the Geological Society, On the
organic Remains found in the Skiddaiv Slate, with some remarks
on the classification of the older rocks of Cumberland and West-
morland. In this he gives a section across the whole of the
Cambrian and Silurian formations of the Lake District, and
describes in ascending order: (i) the granite of the Skiddaw
Forest ; (2) the Skiddaw Slate metamorphosed at the base in
contact with the granite ; (3) the green slates and porphyry,
which he correlates with the volcanic series of Snowdonia &c.;
(4) the Coniston Limestone (a) and calcareous shale (b\ beds
which are now known as the Ash Gill or Fairy Gill Shale ;
(5) Coarse grained siliceous grits. These were probably the
bands of grit in the lower part of the Coniston Flag series,
GEOLOGICAL PAPERS, 18381851. 205
which, owing to their hardness, protrude beyond the softer 1851.
flags, and thus give the impression of having a much greater ^- 66 -
aggregate thickness than they do really attain to ; (6) Ireleth
Slates, that part of the series in which the great quarries were
then opened on the hills above Ireleth, and therefore the
equivalent of the Coniston Flags ; (7) his * Slaty flagstone
ending in Tilestone.' This must include the rest of the
Silurian, namely, the Coniston Grit (which often contains
more fine than coarse material, and is more closely linked to
the beds above it than to those below it), the Bannisdale
Slates, and the Kirkby Moor Flags.
These subdivisions of the Silurian are not yet so well
defined as to be clearly traced across the whole district, and
the zones of life have yet to be worked out more carefully
before we can correlate the different areas even in the Lake
district, Scotland, and North Wales, where the northern types
prevail. The correlation of these life-zones with those of the
Silurian of South Wales is still more remote.
Sedgwick has some very judicious observations on this
subject (p. 218): "I would first remark that all the preceding
groups are true physical groups : and I may venture to affirm
that any one examining the region in detail would inevitably
be led to some arrangement, at least nearly resembling that
given above, and without any reference to the consideration
of organic remains. Good physical groups are the foundations
of all Geology ; and are out of all comparison the most
remarkable monuments of the past history of our globe, so
far as it is made out in any separate physical region.
" Organic remains are, in the first instance, but accessories
to the information conveyed by good sections. But when the
successive groups of organic remains are once established, in
coordination with actual sections, then they tell us of succes-
sive conditions of organic life, which were (as we know by
experience and might perhaps have conjecturally anticipated)
of far wider Geographical extent than the local physical
movements which produced the successive groups of deposits.
206 GEOLOGICAL PAPERS, 18381851.
1851. Hence it follows that, in comparing remote deposits, organic
:t. 66. remains become no longer the secondary but the primary terms
of comparison." In this paper we see an attempt to make
his interpretation of the Lake District and North Wales
Sections fit in with the Lower Silurian Sections of South
Wales in the suggestion that the Coniston Limestone was the
equivalent, net of the Bala Limestone of Bala, but of a higher
band which occurs in the Bala Series near Llansantfifraid.
But that he was here only trying to force his facts into
harmony with what was put forward on such good authority
elsewhere is evident from a note (p. 219) : "If our classification
had been based on the Westmorland Sections, I think No. 5
would have been regarded as the commencement of the Upper
Silurian Series." The value of this paper is much lowered
by the obvious attempts to get out of the observations it
records some arguments in favour of his views of the cor-
relation of other districts, which would have stood far better
on their own merits, and were only weakened by hypothetical
schemes of reconciliation.
At the end of the period we find many details filled in
in Sedgwick's sketch of the rocks between the base of the
Harlech and the top of the Bala Beds, but the data for the
correlation of the rocks of North and South Wales were not
yet forthcoming.
March and April, 1851, were spent in the comparative
quiet of a Residence at Norwich; after which Sedgwick
became again immersed in a whirl of engagements which
lasted until the summer came to an end, and he was able
to seek health and refreshment in a geological tour, the first
he had taken for three years. May and part of June were
occupied with long sittings of the Commission, diversified by
the opening of the new Museum of Practical Geology in
Jermyn Street by Prince Albert a concert at Buckingham
Palace a performance of Not So Bad As We Seem by the
Guild of Literature and Art at Devonshire House visits to
the Crystal Palace and a performance of Handel's Messiah
VISIT FROM DUKE AND DUCHESS OF ARGYLL. 207
at Exeter Hall. The play, with the exception of the acting 1851.
of Charles Dickens, which Sedgwick thought admirable, ^ t 66 '
whether he were " grave, gay, or farcical," did not interest
him so much as the oratorio. " It was gloriously per-
formed," he told his niece, "but did not so much delight
me as did the performance of the same oratorio at one of
the great York festivals, about 25 years since. The solos
were good, but I have heard them sung far more nobly, and
I always think of Bartleman when I hear sacred music like
this. Herr Formes has a far finer voice than Bartleman had,
but wants soul and intellect. Some of the sublime songs,
such as ' Thus spake the Lord/ came from him without any
stirring or inspiring effect. Bartleman used to put the
whole house in movement when he sang Handel's glorious
songs. But the choruses were grand beyond expression
perhaps a little too full for the room. They would have
been better in York Cathedral, and I suspect they spoilt the
ear for the solos 1 ."
At the Queen's Concert Sedgwick met the Duke of
Argyll, and arranged that he and the Duchess should spend
Whitsuntide with him at Cambridge. They were to see all
the sights of the place, spend an evening at the Observatory,
and generally enjoy themselves in a quiet leisurely fashion.
Their host specially stipulated that they " should allow time
enough really to see our old-fashioned Alma Mater, and to
become acquainted with her manners and temper. Now and
then she is a little odd and crusty, but she is a good old-
fashioned Lady in the main." Sedgwick delighted in enter-
taining strangers, but, as the time drew near for his friends
to arrive, his spirits gave way, and he almost dreaded the
exertion. " Want of good sleep," he wrote, " is my great
misery. In consequence, irritability and savage temper, low
spirits and a great stupidity during the day, amounting some-
times to a nervous torpor. I never was myself during any part
of my late Norwich Residence. Sometimes I think that this
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 4 June, 1851.
208 RAPID TOUR IN CORNWALL.
1851. long-continued nervous and gouty worry will end in positive
t. 66. insanity, or perhaps paralysis. But God forbid ! I am at
present pressed by too much work. And how seldom have I
any time to work for myself 1 !" Society, however, usually
acted as a tonic ; and this occasion offered no exception to
the rule. The weather was provokingly bad, so that they
failed to get their promised glimpse of " an old belted knight
of the sky through the Northumberland telescope; " but they
saw what they could between the showers, and when unable
to go out sat in Sedgwick's rooms and talked.
This brief interval of quiet was succeeded by a renewal of
the whirl of conflicting engagements which had characterised
the weeks that had preceded it. Frequent meetings of the
Commissioners sittings to Boxall for a portrait (to be hung
in the small Combination Room of Trinity College) a
geological lecture to the Harrow boys visits to all that was
interesting in London, including Rachel in Phedre the
meeting of the British Association at Ipswich occupied the
rest of June and the first two-thirds of July.
Sedgwick's geological tour this summer began with a
hasty scamper through part of Cornwall with Me Coy, to
examine some points in connection with their joint work on
the fossils of the Palaeozoic rocks. As ill luck would have it
the weather was extremely bad an almost continuous
drizzle of damp rain and Sedgwick's spirits sank as low
as the barometer. " It is really melancholy," he wrote from
Launceston, " to revisit a place like this after so many years
of absence. One gentleman was left whom I had formerly
known, and with him we spent a pleasant evening. Another
evening we drank tea with two middle-aged ladies who
remembered one when they were little children. You will
not wonder at this when you bear in mind that my first
visit to Penzance was in 1819 my second in 1828 and
my last but one in 1836. I am becoming every year more
and more unfit for hard work ; and 'tis not likely that I
1 To Mrs John Sedgwick, 7 June, 1851.
RAPID TOUR IN CORNWALL. 209
should ever visit Cornwall again 1 ." Wherever he went the 1851.
same sad contrast between past and present forced itself ^ 66 '
upon his mind. At St Michael's Mount he remembered
with regret his happy visit with Whewell, when they slept
at the Mount, and walked by moonlight on the battlements
with two charming young ladies. " Whewell," Sedgwick de-
clared, " had a palpitation of the heart for a month after, and
used to walk in his sleep, maundering about battlements,
sparkling waves, bright eyes, and ruby lips, and I know not
what besides 2 ." He called on his old friend Mr Le Grice
in anticipation of much cheerful talk, but found that he had
gone away to attend his brother's funeral, that he was para-
lytic and had lost his memory, and had he been at home,
would probably not have known him 3 . Another friend was
too ill to see anyone ; and a third was broken down with
grief from the recent loss of his wife and eldest son. In
spite of some good geological work Sedgwick was not sorry
when this part of his tour was brought to an end by Me Coy's
engagements in connection with the second Fasciculus of their
joint work, which he was anxious to finish before his winter
work in Ireland began.
Sedgwick's original intention was to go from Cornwall to
Wales, and from Wales to Scotland, where he had left several
questions unsolved in 1848. For part of this expedition he
had tried to secure the society of Murchison. After describing
what he wanted to do in Cornwall, he proceeds as follows :
...I shall then try to revisit a few sections in Siluria, and
a few in North Wales, especially in reference to the uncon-
formable Caradoc of the Berwyns, etc. as laid down by the
Government surveyors. Perhaps I may get old John Ruthven
to join me after Me Coy quits the field. All this will require
only a few weeks. Can we correspond ? Above all (after you
quit Ireland) could you for a fortnight meet me in Scotland,
and go over a section or two to ascertain, if possible, the true
1 To Rev. John Sedgwick, 2 August, 1851. 3 Ibid.
2 To Miss Fanny Hicks, 8 August, 1851.
S. II. 14
2io DIFFICULTIES OF SCOTCH GEOLOGY.
l8 5 J - place of the great central graptolite zone ; and perhaps to have
" 66< a peep at the Balmae group which I cannot (on the evidence
I have yet seen) bring into Upper Silurian (i.e. Wenlock
Shale) ? Allowing it to be Wenlock Shale, then I think the
great graptolite zone must also come into Wenlock Shale.
But I cannot make my sections work into this view. And if
it be the right view then I cannot bring the South Chain of
Scotland into any comparison with the system of Cumberland
on the other side of the Solway. That the Irish rocks opposite
are the physical prolongation of the Galloway is quite
certain ; and after you have seen these rocks you will be
prepared for the questions above alluded to far better than
I can pretend to be at present ; for the analogy between
the Galloway and Cumbrian series is only hypothetical...!
hope this will catch you. My dear friend of the hammer,
Ever yours,
A. SEDGWICK 1 .
Murchison had made his plans for the autumn 2 , and could
not accept this invitation ; so the Scotch part of the tour was
given up, and Sedgwick had to content himself with the
society of Ruthven, and an examination of part of North
Wales, which he had not visited since 1846.
To the Duke of Argyll.
CAMBRIDGE, October i$t/i, 1851.
My dear Lord Duke,
It is very kind of you and the Duchess to tell me
of your ' pleasant visit to Cambridge ; ' and I do hope you
will both, before long, repeat the visit under a better sky :
indeed as her brother is coming to reside here I cannot help
indulging in the hope that I shall have the happiness of
again receiving the Duchess in my rooms, and of doing my
best to entertain her. I cannot do more. I say happiness
1 The letter is undated, but was evidently written in July, 1851.
2 Geikie's Life of Murchison, ii. 148.
VIEWS ON CORNISH GEOLOGY. 211
rather than honor ; for the latter word would only express a 1851.
truism, but the former is the honest language of my heart. ^t. 66.
During the latter part of July I spent about a fortnight
in Cornwall. The weather was hot and damp not a day
without rain and when the rain was not falling in big
drops we seemed to be living in a kind of hot vapour like
that of a wash-house. Me Coy was with me, and we did
some work spite of gout and bad weather. The slate rocks
of Cornwall are essentially Devonian but there is one ex-
ception. Part of the promontory running down to the
Dodman (between St Austell Bay and Falmouth Bay) is
certainly older. I should call it Cambrian ; Murchison would
call it Lower Silurian. The sections are extremely puzzling.
There is either a great concealed fault, or a positive inversion
of the strata, in the great promontory. Had I been myself
I should perhaps have worked out this point a little better ;
but at the time I felt as if my bones were all gelatinized, and
my brain turned into cold starch. Of the general fact, how-
ever, there is not the shadow of a doubt. Pardon me ! I do
not mean the fact touching gelatine and starch ; but the fact
that very old rocks form the southern end of the headland
S.W. of St Austell. Last year Murchison put in a colour
for Upper Silurian rocks through a part of Cornwall and
South Devon. He was misled by false information. The
parts so coloured are all Devonian.
All the fossil fishes talked of in Cornwall turn out to be
fishes in a mare's nest. Me Coy has settled this point. The
supposed fishes are closely allied to sponges ! We found
some admirable, self-taught naturalists on the coast among
them a very learned surgeon living a half-amphibious life in
a natural cleft among the cliffs. He laughed the fishes out
of countenance, and was delighted to talk with Me Coy
about their mock representatives.... Another point, of some
importance, we also made out. The highest groups in Corn-
wall and Devon, viz. those immediately under the Culm
Measures have latterly been considered as a part of the
142
212 VIEWS ON CORNISH GEOLOGY.
1851. Carboniferous Series, and therefore to be packed along with
Mt. 66. t-h e Culmiferous beds. They seem to be in the exact place
of the Irish carboniferous slates, and the great majority of
their fossils are carboniferous. But in these groups (near
Petherwin and Barnstaple) are also some of the most
characteristic Devonian species. Of course I am using the
word Devonian in a technical sense. Hence, these highest
groups form a connecting link between the Devonian and
Carboniferous series, both physically and zoologically. Mur-
chison and I asserted, on what we thought good authority,
that the Devonian Corals were specifically the same with the
Silurian. Me Coy has, I think, demonstrated this to be an
entire mistake.
In North Devon the weather changed and became glorious,
but hot almost past endurance ; and I became better with the
weather, though not till I had rested three or four days at
Bristol, and put the inner man in better order. There I
parted with Me Coy to my great sorrow. Afterwards I
threaded my way through Monmouthshire, Herefordshire,
and Shropshire the garden of all Silurian Geology. Having
plucked many flowers in that garden, I then rolled along a
railroad to Chester, and thence to Bangor, from which, after
walking through the giant tube, I started on a tour through
North Wales. This trip over, I ran to Liverpool, and spent
three days in tracking footsteps in the New Red Sandstone
on the Cheshire side of the Mersey.... After leaving Liver-
pool I did some work among the Carboniferous hills of
Craven and Westmoreland. In some deep valleys of denuda-
tion the lower rocks are laid bare, and by help of the fossils
I was able to make out their exact places in the lower
palaeozoic series. This hole-and-corner labour took me about
a week. It was doubly delightful to me because done in
the land of my childhood ; but the delight was not without
alloy, as I was reminded at every turn of the melancholy
changes produced by the lapse of time. In one little village
among the mountains where I spent a joyous vacation more
GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. 213
than fifty years since, I enquired after old friends, and looked 1851
out for old faces, but in vain. All were gone to distant lands, &* 6
or gathered to their fathers. Finally I left my birth-place
the old parsonage at Dent in time for our Fellowship
examination, and in time for the gout.
Your Grace began by talking of " firing a shot to bring
me up." Before this you will, I think, have been longing for
a long gun to bring me down. But I will now, after this
long run, bring myself up and strike sail. Pray convey my
heartfelt good wishes to the Duchess, and believe me, my
dear Lord Duke,
Ever faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
The Michaelmas term was spent in lecturing, and attending
frequent meetings of the University Commissioners, subjects
over which it is unnecessary to linger. As before remarked,
Sedgwick's spirits had lost much of their former buoyancy,
and he worked on doggedly, from a sense of duty. " I have
too much on my hands for an old man/' he wrote. " Rest
for a winter absolute rest spent perhaps abroad, might
set me on my legs again. Wherever I go I am bothered 1 ."
He found time, however, to write, and to read to the
Geological Society (5 November) a paper On the Slate Rocks
of Devon and Cornwall, giving the results of his summer's
work in that part of England, which shews no sign of
feebleness. This was succeeded (3 December) by another,
On t/ie Lower Palceozoic Rocks at the base of the Carboniferous
Chain between Ravenstonedale and Ribblesdale. To both
these works we shall return in a future chapter.
The Christmas Vacation was spent in Cambridge. Sedg-
wick was an admirable Vice-Master, and though he sometimes
said that he had "company more than enough" in College,
and longed for " a quiet domestic fireside with cheerful
domestic talk," no man was more anxious to maintain old
customs, or to promote the general hilarity of Christmas.
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 22 October, 1851.
214 THE LAST NIGHT OF THE OLD YEAR.
1851. To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
Et66> CAMBRIDGE, December 31^, 1851. 6i A.M.
"...Ever since Trinity College was founded it has been
the custom to welcome in the new year by a merry party.
I never eat supper, but, as Vice-Master, I must be present,
and I expect five or six guests whom I have invited. A few
minutes before twelve St Mary's twelve bells strike off a
merry peal. Exactly at twelve our butler walks in with
a goblet of seasoned hot wine we call Bishop. : Gentlemen,
I wish you all a happy new year, and prosperity to Trinity
College.' We then stand up and cheer, three times three,
to the toast ; after shaking hands we sit down again. Some
will sit long ; but I am happy to say that no man will now
drink deep...."
The course of our narrative has now brought us to a
subject which we would gladly pass over in silence, were it in
our power to do so the estrangement between Sedgwick and
Murchison, to which allusion has been already made. On the
personal question as little as possible will be said ; but, as the
subject-matter of the quarrel was one of the most important
pieces of Sedgwick's geological work, it is necessary to give
a full account of what may be called the Cambro-Silurian
controversy ; this will be relegated to a separate chapter.
It is difficult to state precisely when or how the final
rupture between the Kings of Cambria and Siluria was
brought about, if indeed there ever was any distinct rupture
at all. Their friendly intercourse came to an end, but it
would be more accurate to say that they drifted asunder
rather than that they formally quarrelled on a definite
occasion. At the point we have now reached we have
merely to describe a preliminary skirmish, which, though it
brought the principal combatants into the field, and led to
the disastrous consequence of estranging Sedgwick from the
Geological Society, did not amount to a formal declaration
of war. It was a sort of reconnaissance in force a massing
CAMBRIAN OR SILURIAN? 215
of troops on the frontiers, to be ready for active service 1852.
should a need for action present itself. This movement was &* 6 7-
caused by the publication, on the part of the Government
Surveyors under Sir Henry de la Beche, of a geological map
of North Wales. On this map the colours used to distinguish
Silurian rocks were extended over a large part of those
heretofore described as Cambrian by Sedgwick. In other
words, his territories were declared to be annexed by the
neighbouring potentate ; and, in fact, nothing was left him
except certain rocks, then supposed to be non-fossiliferous, at
the very bottom of his Cambrian System.
No geologist who had worked out a district as Sedgwick
had worked out North Wales could have submitted to such
an overthrow of his own conclusions without making an
attempt to justify himself; and, in consequence, he read to
the Geological Society (25 February, 1852) a paper On the
Classification and Nomenclature of the Lower Palceozoic Rocks
of England and Wales, which, while it professed to be merely
a continuation of the paper on some of the same rocks read
two months before (3 December, 1851), was in reality an
indignant protest against the treatment to which he had been
subjected. The paper has been criticised as too personal in
tone; but it must be remembered that the geological questions
involved were of the greatest importance to Sedgwick ; and
that any defence of himself could hardly avoid including an
indictment, more or less detailed, of " my friend and fellow-
labourer, in this instance my antagonist 1 ."
It is to be regretted that no contemporary record of what
took place in the Society when the paper was over should
have been preserved. It is, however, no stretch of the
imagination to assume that the excitement was great, and
the discussion animated. It was long since such a bolt had
fallen out of the blue ; and it is evident, from what followed,
that the conscript fathers of Somerset House were scared out
1 See Sedgwick's account of these matters in a letter to Murchison printed
below, pp. 250 256.
216 SEDGWICK AND THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
852. of their propriety. In their anxiety for peace they lost their
\.. 67. heads, and only precipitated the explosion they were anxious
to avert.
On the day the paper was read it was " referred " in the
ordinary way. The referee selected was Professor John
Phillips, F. R. S., of York, the distinguished geologist. When
returned by him, with suggestions for its amendment, it was
sent back to Sedgwick for revision, after which the referee
again saw it, and suggested the omission of certain notes. It
was then "ballotted for and ordered to be printed in the
abstracted form recommended by the referee" (7 April). Mr
Geikie tells us that when it appeared in print " there was
a very general expression of sympathy with Murchison 1 ."
This may have been the case, for his personal influence
would attract to 'his side a body of men of whom very few
had any knowledge of the facts of the case, or the real points
of the question under discussion. One thing at least is clear,
namely, that the paper excited so much observation and
comment that the Council arrived at the extraordinary
conclusion that they ought to remove the unclean thing
from their Journal, and actually decided (19 May) on can-
celling the number in which it had appeared 2 . Reflexion,
however, shewed that such a course was impracticable, as
the number in question had been in circulation for more
than a fortnight. They therefore rescinded the resolution
(16 June), and, as Mr John Carrick Moore, then Secretary,
wrote to Sedgwick, "at the same time a paper by Sir R.
Murchison was laid on the table, containing an historical
1 Life of Murchison, ii. 141.
2 Minutes of the Council of the Geological Society, 19 May, 1852. 8.
"Sir R. I. Murchison called the attention of the Council to certain passages in
the paper of Professor Sedgwick published in the last Number of the Joiirnal"
9. "The Council observing with regret that the paper of Professor Sedgwick
in No. 30 of the Journal, May ist, 1852, has been published inadvertently with
certain passages which the Council had required to be omitted,
"Resolved, that the number be recalled, and pages 152 to the end cancelled ;
and that a notice to this effect be printed on the first page of the next number of
the Journal"
SEDGWICK AND THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 217
statement of his labours among the Palaeozoic rocks 1 . This 1852.
paper had been shown to three Members of the Council, who ^ 6 7-
all vouched for its not containing a syllable that could give
you offence. The President then directed that it should be
read at the evening meeting (in point of fact the title only
was read, as was the case with about fifteen others). It will
then be referred, and treated like other communications ; and
the Council expressed a strong determination, both parties
having said their say, not to allow of any more words from
either party. I may add that many expressed, and all seemed
to feel, that if there was anything in your Paper which ought
not to have appeared in the Journal consistently with rules
and customs, no blame either directly or by implication was
to be cast on the author, the Council alone being the govern-
ing body who direct or forbid publication 2 ."
With this attempt to undo that which ought never to have
been done, the matter ended. But it left on Sedgwick's mind
an indelible sense of wrong, and his subsequent relations with
the Society were formal and constrained. In after years he
spoke of the attempt to suppress his Paper as "a personal
stigma unexampled in the history of any other Philosophical
Society in London 3 ;" and of the further determination to
impose silence for the future on both parties the secret
article of the treaty, so to speak, for no formal resolution to
that effect was entered in the Minute Book with even greater
bitterness. In the following year (13 November, 1853), the
Council tried to give a new colour to the transaction by
shifting the responsibility of publication from themselves to
their officers*. But this subterfuge like the sacrifice of a
1 On the Meaning of the term SILURIAN SYSTEM as adopted by Geologists in
various coimiries during the last ten years. (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. viii. 173).
It is a reply to Sedgwick, expressed in courteous and considerate language.
2 From J. C. Moore, 17 June, 1852.
3 Preface to Sailer's Catalogue, p. xxix.
4 The following resolution was entered in the Minute Book :
" Resolved, that the Council have learnt with regret that Professor Sedgwick
is under the impression that the Minute passed in May, 1852, and subsequently
rescinded, imputed to him that he had not complied with an order of the Council.
2i8 MURCHISOWS EXPLANATION.
1852. minister to screen a sovereign could hardly have deceived
t. 67. an ybody, least of all Sedgwick 1 .
While the Council of the Society was floundering in a
slough of its own making, the two persons most keenly
interested were dealing vigorous blows at each other in the
pages of The Literary Gazette. Two days after Sedgwick's
paper was read, Murchison wrote him a letter evidently
intended to be explanatory and conciliatory. This, however,
was only a preface to what followed.
BELGRAVE SQUARE, February 27, 1852.
My dear Sedgwick,
In enclosing you one of my cards for soirees, let me beg
of you to prepare the abstract of your paper so that there should be
nothing in it which can be construed into an expression on your part
that / had acted unfairly by you.
This is the only point which roused my feelings the other night,
and made me speak more vehemently than I intended. But I did
intend to tell the meeting, in reference to that very point (what I
forgot to say) that I have over and over urged you to bring out your
fossils and complete the subject you had undertaken.
It was no fault of mine that you did not do this. And as to the
Cambridge Syllabus of 1836 you must recollect that this was after I
had been describing and naming specifically the fossils from the
Silurian Rocks, Upper and Lower, during the years 1833. I 834, an d
1835, ^e System with all its names being promulgated in print in
1835. What was done after this was simply elaborating the details of
maps, sections, and so forth, until 1838, when all was completed.
The Cambrian System was unnamed in 1835. It was then simply
called Lower Greywacke.
It was not me, I repeat, who made Cambrian into Lower Silurian,
but the Government surveyors and palaeontologists.
It is true that hearing of their labours I threw an eye over a part
of them in 1842 with Keyserling, when I was convinced, and still more
when I explored the critical points last year with their maps in hand,
that no separation, physically or zoologically, could be made between
Lower Silurian as denned by me, and the Snowdonian and Bala rocks.
The analogy of every place on the Continent and of America
had led me to come to this conclusion before. In fact, all foreign
They disclaim having had any such intention, and request the President to
communicate with Professor Sedgwick, and to assure him that no such imputation
was intended to be conveyed by that Minute ; the real meaning of which was that
the Officers, charged with the publication of the Journal, had inadvertently
printed matter which the Council had ordered to be suppressed."
1 See his account of this, printed below, pp. 254, 255.
MURCHISOWS EXPLANATION. 219
geologists, without my having anything to say to them, named the 1852.
very groups which you call Cambrian, Silurian. ^ t . 6
I, therefore, had no choice. You will find, on mature reflexion,
I am persuaded, that there is but one natural history group of life in
Cambria and Siluria.
I did not like to rise again at midnight to talk about Barrande
and others ; but you are really mistaken as to their views. Barrande
has already about sixty species common to Upper and Loiver. But it is
true that his very uppermost limestones have so much of the
Devonian character, that it may be questioned whether they can be
held to represent any part of my Upper Silurian.
This remark applies to almost all the shreds of Upper Silurian in
France and on the Continent. So that, as there is no sort of
stopping-place between Caradoc and the very bottom of the
Llandeilo or Bala series so, if all this were to be taken away from
the Silurian, the very name must be expunged from the Continent.
Again, in Norway and many other places Upper and Lower (the
latter with a full series of all your North Welsh fossils) roll over and
over in small compact masses in which no general distinctions can
be made.
My opinions are based on a conscientious conviction that the
whole is one Natural History Series, if you object to System.
But enough of this. I cannot presume to do more than speak
frankly to you ; and whilst I dare say you will not change your
opinions about nomenclature I again entreat you to allow nothing to
appear in print which can lead the world to suppose that we can
quarrel about a name... 1 . Pray let us wrangle no more about the
vexata qucestio. We have done many a stroke of good work together,
and if we had united to describe the whole Principality and the
bordering counties of England the lamentable position in which we
now stand as apparent antagonists could never have occurred.
But I am told by Logan and others, that if I had delayed a single
year or two in bringing out my Silurian System with all its fossils the
Yankees would have anticipated me. And you well know that
Wales, North and South, was not to be puzzled out in less than many
years of hard labour.
I have been grievously pained to be set in antagonism to you, but
I can solemnly assure you that I know no possible way by which my
present position could be altered without stultifying my original
views of the Silurian System as a whole, and my confirmed and
extended views respecting it as acquired from a general survey of the
world.
Yours, my dear Sedgwick, most sincerely,
R. I. MURCHISON.
The abstract referred to, when published, was so worded
that Murchison thought proper to let the world know what he
1 The omitted paragraph deals with a totally different subject.
220 WORK AS A UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONER.
l8 52. had said, when the paper was first read. This was promptly
7 ' answered by Sedgwick ; whereupon Murchison wrote a second
article, to which Sedgwick sent a second answer, and there the
war of words ended '. As might be expected, some hard things
were said, but, on the whole, the controversy was a temperate
one, and both combatants were at pains to assure the world
of their unaltered friendship. Nor, strange to say, do their
relations appear to have suffered in cordiality by what had
passed. The private letters which Sedgwick wrote to
Murchison in this year are no less friendly than heretofore.
In any other year it is probable that Sedgwick's time
and thoughts would have been completely absorbed in
this exciting geological controversy. It happened, however,
perhaps fortunately, that the labours of the University Com-
missioners were drawing to a close, and that the preparation
of the Report demanded his constant attention. It is mani-
festly impossible to determine which passages of that ponder-
ous document it occupies two hundred folio pages may be
assigned to him, and which to his brother commissioners ;
but it is evident that he actually wrote a good deal of it.
In February, for instance, he says : " I am working for the
Commission, and this morning finished the i6th sheet of
foolscap ; " and, at various intervals through the year, his
correspondence tells the same tale. The summer was ex-
ceptionally hot, but even in June and July his labours in
Downing Street were not interrupted. Here is a description
of himself in the latter month on his return to Cambridge
from a spell of Commission-work.
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
CAMBRIDGE, July 6tk, 1852.
"...I am smoking at every pore. The perspiration hisses
from me with a noise like a steam-whistle ; I am in a state of
fusion and confusion ever moping and mopping, a miserable
walking machine a vapeur. Sometimes I think my poor
bedmaker will find me running all over the floor, and have
1 The articles are in The Literary Gazette for 1852, pp. 278, 338, 369, 417.
VISITS THE QUEEN AT OS BORNE. 221
to pick up my organic remains in slop-pails ; at other times, 1852.
I fancy that I am undergoing sublimation, and that all my &* 6 7-
corporeal parts will mount into the sky, and find their place
in the regions of cloud-land. So, dearest Fan, I must
conclude ; first asking you to give my broiling love, hot out
of the dripping-pan of my thoughts, to all in your house,
from my brother James down to prick-eared Shindy...."
By this time the Report of the Commissioners for Oxford
had been before the public for some weeks; and Prince Albert
was naturally anxious to learn from his secretary what line
the Commissioners for Cambridge were likely to adopt.
Sedgwick's attendance was therefore commanded at Osborne.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
OSBORNE, July 17^, 1852.
My dear Isabella,
You cannot expect many adventures on the railroad
between London and Southampton. But Southampton did
astonish me. It is quite a new town since I saw it last
alas ! more than twenty years since. The terminus is far
from the old part of the town ; and a new city has risen
around it ; and they have excavated a great new dock and
harbour. We went immediately to the dock, and waited till
the Queen's Messenger arrived from Osborne in the royal
yacht ; and then, without delay, we embarked in her. The
voyage was charming. The atmosphere was bright and cool,
thanks to the thunder-storm. I have had a walk in the park,
and been playing ball with Prince Arthur a very fine merry
child but I must dress for dinner.
You have never, I think, seen the Isle of Wight, and now
it is in all its quiet glory. I love it, because I have worked
through all corners of it, hammer in hand ; and because I have
spent in it some of the happiest days of my life. From my
window I look over the channel to the Hampshire coast;
and beautiful woodlands hang on both sides, down to the
water's edge, producing a combination the eye delights to rest
upon
222 VISITS THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE.
52. Sunday Homing 7 a.m. Already I have had my morning
- 6 7- coffee, ordered to my room by the Master of the Household.
The Prince and Queen cantered past me yesterday. Each
wore a wide-awake. I should not have known them, had not
the Prince uncovered, and I immediately took the hint and
pulled off my hat. They bowed and passed on. They were
followed only by one lad on horseback to open gates. Every
thing here is unostentatious no bands of music, no soldiers.
There is a policeman at the gate of the Park, and at the
landing-place ; with this exception there is nothing here that
much differs from a private gentleman's house.... The Court
is in mourning; and all the ladies were in mourning with
plain head-dresses, and without any jewels. So the table
was not at all splendid, for the gentlemen, at Osborne, never
wear any uniforms. We had a good dinner, but not by any
means an ostentatious one. The wines I never tasted, as I
found at my elbow a bottle of seltzer water with a little
brandy in it, which you know is my best beverage. I acted
as chaplain. The Queen is in excellent health, and in joyous
spirits. She was amusing her friends by an account of the
terrific thunderstorm of the preceding day, which began in
the Isle of Wight several hours sooner than in London. She
and the Prince were caught, and obliged to shelter in a house
near Ryde, where they remained till the tempest had passed
over. The consequence was that on Friday night they did
not dine at Osborne before half-past nine. Our dinner did
not last long, and the Queen did not sit long after dinner.
After coffee in the dining-room we adjourned to the drawing-
room ; and there we found a celebrated German pianist a
young lass from Bohemia whom the Queen patronizes who
went through some wonderful brass-wire evolutions which
bothered my senses. She did, however, play some charming
music which I could understand. During the intervals of
this wonderful performance the Queen went round to make
talk. I had my turn. She asked me several questions
about the big pieces of ice which had fallen the day before
THE PRINCE AND THE OXFORD REPORT. 223
one bit 7 inches in circumference. She had picked up 1852.
some large hailstones which exhibited a peculiar radiating ^- ^
structure. I endeavoured to explain it by the analogous
structure of balls of iron pyrites in chalk, etc. Of course
we, at first, all stood in the Royal Presence ; but the Queen
soon ordered us all to sit down ; and then you could see no
difference between the Osborne drawing-room and that of a
private house. So, good morning. I must finish my dress,
take a turn, and then join the breakfast-party. How
beautiful is the view from my window ! The Channel and
the Hampshire coast shining in the cheerful light of morning.
Once more, good morning.
Sunday, i p.m. I read prayers in what they call the
council-room, for there is no regular chapel at Osborne and
there was no sermon. The Queen formerly attended the
parish church ; but she found such a press of people (especially
the visitors from Cowes) that the little church became op-
pressive ; and she has lately engaged some clergyman to read
prayers here on a Sunday. They talk now of building a
chapel, which does indeed seem necessary to make this rural
palace complete....
Monday Morning. After lunch I walked with the Master
of the Household to the parish church (about a mile across
the fields from Osborne), the ladies followed in carriages.
On my return I found that the Prince had sent for me to talk
about the Commission ; but when we got back the Queen and
Prince in one carriage and the Duchess of Kent in another,
were starting on a drive with all the children. So the Com-
mission talk was put off till the evening in the drawing-room.
I then found that the Prince greatly admired the Oxford
Report. He seemed to like the idea, there started, of mixing
the foreign and English systems. The Oxford Commission
suggest a plan of admitting any numbers who like to come,
without belonging to any college, or being under the ordinary
restraints of academic discipline just as at Edinburgh and
the foreign Universities. On this scheme there would be
224 VISITS THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE.
1852. two classes of candidates for degrees and University honours
Et. 67. Town-men and College-men. I told the Prince, honestly, that
we should not recommend this plan. Each system might do
by itself but the two never would, we thought, work well to-
gether. I think he was a little disappointed at this ; for 'tis just
the part of the Oxford Report that has been puffed by the
bellows of The Times and of the whole daily press ; and he
evidently does not wish us to fall behind Oxford. But if they,
on any single point, advance too far, 'tis well, regarding that
point, to be behind them. Besides, Cambridge has been far in
advance of Oxford in everything regarding internal administra-
tion, and we have not half so much to reform as they have. I
made some remarks of this kind, to which he assented, adding
some remarks about the multitude of close Fellowships at
Oxford, which he had learnt from their Report. He has
studied it from end to end, which is more than I have done,
or mean to do. I read it in the way in which Jack Horner ate
pie. Our dinner yesterday went off exactly as the day before ;
only Lord Hardwicke (the Lord in waiting) was present.
He does not commonly attend at Osborne ; but is come now
to accompany the Royal party on a visit to Plymouth and
other places on the South Coast, and, you know, he is a sailor.
They start this morning from Osborne pier, and I hope to be
a looker-on from the neighbouring cliff. It must be a splendid
sight. I do not mean to cross in the little royal yacht to
Southampton, but to take a packet at Cowes and go up the
Channel to Ryde and Portsmouth. I want to take a peep at
the modern improvements.... The house is all in a bustle for
the voyage, and the Queen is off about nine. Perhaps I may
add a word or two about the embarkation, but I do not
promise. I must go down and join the breakfast party.
They are early this morning.
Brighton, Tuesday ', 7 a.m. The embarkation was a very
beautiful sight. I went down in good time and sat on a bank
by the seaside along with the children of Colonel Phipps
(the ' Privy Purse '). Five war-steamers, rigged as frigates,
THE ROYAL EMBARCATION. 225
and decorated with all their colours and signal-flags, were at 1852.
anchor about half-a-mile from the pier. Nearer still a few ^ 6 7-
hundred yards from the pierhead was the Victoria and
Albert Royal yacht steamer. The captains and officers, in
full uniform glittering in the bright sun, were arranged in
rows on the pier to conduct the Royal party to two twelve-
oared barges, from one of which was floating the Royal
standard. A sailor was stationed on a part of the cliff which
showed the turn of the road from Osborne to the beach, and
exactly at half-past nine the time decided on at the break-
fast Jack pulled off his hat and gave the signal of approach.
All fell into their right places, and the sailors in the barges
stood up with their oars held erect above their heads. The
Queen and Prince went first, very plainly dressed, and four
children followed; but did not long follow; for they scampered
about and sometimes ran round their father and mother. The
Court followed in good order, and in a few minutes all were
embarked by signal the oars dropped into the water, and off
they all went. Before long the great barge with the Royal
standard was up with the Victoria and Albert, and all were
on board. We could not see this distinctly, but I knew that
the fact would soon be known by the salutes fired from the
broadsides of the five war-steamers. For several minutes the
roar of the great guns was magnificently exciting. I then
went back, and drove to Cowes.... There, I will endeavour
to seal this load of a letter, and put it in the post. If you
think it worth while you may show it to any of your prudent
friends, but do so with a caution. Great people don't like
their private habits to be talked about. I described what I
saw at Osborne in a former letter to yourself, and I talked
about my visit to several of my friends. And what do you
think ? My descriptions, and almost my very words, some
time afterwards found their way into the newspapers, through
the prating, meddling, busy, impertinent folly of some one or
other. Who was the meddling fool I shall never know ; but
if I knew who he was I should like to pull out his ears
S. II. 15
226 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS.
1852. till their asinine length showed the metal he was made of.
JEt. 67. To-morrow, Commission. I have much enjoyed my trip.
Measure my love by the length of my letter. Love to all.
Ever, dearest Isabella, affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
After this most of July and August was spent in work
for the Commission. At the end of the latter month, when
they were sitting for almost the entire day to get their work
completed, he writes :
"...We do not work so hard this week as we did last, yet
I did work very hard on Tuesday. I was writing the
conclusion of our Report in my lodgings from six to ten.
From eleven to three we were looking over, altering, and
putting our papers in final order. I then dined, and had a
nap upon a sofa. At seven the Commission met at my
lodgings, and we were at work till near midnight, discussing
and arranging the conclusion. We met yesterday for about
two hours, and then I had the happiness of going with the
secretary to the Queen's printing-office and putting the last
sheets in the printer's hands. We felt as happy as does a
mail-coach horse on reaching a stable after a hard drive 1 ."
After this the conclusion was not long delayed. Four
days later Sedgwick records, with evident exultation : " We
meet at 5 p.m. to-day to sign ; and then, farewell Downing
Street ! I am heartily tired of it 2 ."
Our readers would be as tired as Sedgwick were we to
attempt an analysis of the labours then concluded. The
whole volume, by which we mean the Evidence as well as
the Report, deserves careful study. The former is a most
valuable storehouse of information on the University, the
Professorships, and the Colleges; the latter embodies, at
least in substance, most of the reforms subsequently adopted.
Among the more important recommendations are the follow-
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 26 August, 1852.
' 2 To the same, 30 August, 1852.
WOODWARDIAN CHAIR AND MUSEUM, .227
ing: the abolition of the Caput, and the substitution of a 1852.
Council ; the abolition of certain usages offensive to the Town ^t. 67.
and of no advantage to the University ; the institution of
Boards of Studies, corresponding in number to the depart-
ments of learning for which it is proposed that honours
should be given; a preliminary examination in the course
of the second year, after which it should be competent for
students to transfer themselves to any branch of study which
they might select ; the establishment of Public Lecturers,
nominated and regulated by the Boards of Studies ; all
Fellowships and Scholarships to be the rewards of merit
only, and for this purpose all local and family claims to be
abolished ; to open all close Fellowships and Scholarships
to all Her Majesty's subjects wherever born ; contributions
from the colleges towards the remuneration of the Public
Lecturers, and Professors ; a revival of the ancient system of
hostels affiliated to colleges ; and, lastly, the erection of new
Museums of Science.
Sedgwick's own evidence respecting the Woodwardian
Professorship and Museum is extremely interesting and
valuable, not merely as giving the history of the collection
up to 1852, with the names of many benefactors who might
otherwise have been forgotten, but as containing many useful
suggestions for the future, intermingled with personal details
respecting his own discharge of his duties. Some of these
suggestions have been already acted upon, and have a purely
historical interest ; others still deserve careful consideration.
We will extract a few of the most important.
(i) So far from being detained in Cambridge during the Long
Vacation, the Professor ought to be employed in making field-surveys,
either in the British Isles or on the Continent, during three or four
months of each summer. To secure this very essential object,
an allowance for travelling expenses might, perhaps, be made him out
of University funds. Within the thirty-four years of my service I
have many times, during the summer's geological tour, spent more
than the whole stipend of the Professorship. I do not by any means
make this statement by way of complaint, for the work was one of
good will ; but this state of things cannot and ought not to last; and
152
228. WOODWARDIAN CHAIR AND MUSEUM.
1852. in making this recommendation I have no personal interests to serve
Et. 67. i n anv vulgar sense, as my period of service is nearly over, and I am
now becoming unfit for the robuster duties of an office which I hope
soon to resign to more youthful and vigorous hands. If the Professor
confined his labours to the closet, his lectures, however ably
elaborated, might fall almost dead from his lips ; but if he meet his
class, year by year, after a voyage of discovery, he will be rewarded
by finding an animated and earnest audience.
(2) I venture very earnestly to recommend that, in addition to
the two Woodwardian Inspectors, at least one good naturalist and
geologist be annually appointed by the University to inspect and
report upon the new collections... In this way the collection will not
stagnate, but will advance with the discoveries of a progressive
science, and the Academic Collection will, in successive years,
represent, as it ought to do, the actual condition of geological
discovery. For this end it would be well for the University from time
to time to appoint some scientific Inspector, who was not a member
of the University, but well acquainted with the state of the great
British collections... The occasional report of such an Inspector
might produce a very healthy rivalry, and might very greatly benefit
the University, by suggesting an interchange of duplicates or
redundant specimens.
(3) The custody and exhibition of the old Woodwardian
cabinets belongs exclusively to the Professor; but the present
condition of the Museum requires the daily presence of an assistant-
curator. ... For nearly a hundred years the University but ill discharged
the obligations that were contracted by the acceptance of the
Woodwardian bequest. She provided neither an adequate Museum
nor a lecture-room ; and, although all the surplus derived from the
Woodwardian estates has been very properly expended on the New
Museum, I think the Senate still owes a large arrear of debt to the
equitable claims of the Professorship. All the proceeds of the
estates are devoted to specific objects by the express terms of Dr
Woodward's Will, and the increased rents of the estates are by no
means more than sufficient to meet the present annual demands for
such specific objects. But other objects have arisen 'out of the
progress of geological science, and their importance has been
sanctioned by recent Graces of the Senate ; and it is not, I trust,
improper for me respectfully to urge upon the Senate the appoint-
ment of an assistant-curator of the Museum. It now contains a
noble collection of very great value which is the property of the
University, and which has been brought together at great cost, but
without any tax on the ordinary Academic funds. During the
latter half of the period in which I have filled the Professorship,
I have, at my own cost, contributed more than ^1300 towards the
collections and arrangements of the Museum ; and, I may add,
several liberal friends have also, at great personal cost, contributed
to the fossil stores of our cabinets. Now that the University
possesses such a new collection, and that geology is an acknowledged
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE. 229
subject of academic study, the Senate would do well to sanction the 1852.
appointment of an assistant-curator, with a salary to be paid out of yt. 67.
the funds of the University. No menial duties should be imposed
on him; and he would find ample employment in working under
the Professor, in making catalogues, in mounting and labelling
specimens, and (while the Professor is absent) in daily explaining to
visitors and students the nature and arrangements of the collection.
(4) When a new side of the intended library-square shall have
been erected, it will, agreeably to the architect's plan, contain a
series of lecture-rooms. It would greatly forward the interests of
science were the Collection of Comparative Anatomy hereafter
arranged in this new building on the same floor with the Geological
Collection; for palaeontology cannot be studied to good effect
without a constant appeal to Comparative Anatomy; and Comparative
Anatomy would gain continual interest by an appeal to analogous
organic structures derived from the Old World. In that case
the present Anatomical Museum might be appropriated to Human
Anatomy and Pathology, etc.
(5) It might be said that the Woodwardian funds are all appro-
priated, and that the corporate funds of the University are too low to
meet any costly demands which may be made upon them. But if
the corporate funds be low, the aggregate College incomes are very
great; and the Colleges are bound to uphold, by every honest means
compatible with their corporate obligations, that great cause of liberal
academic instruction of which the Professorial lectures now form an
essential part. The Colleges can only exist in honour, and con-
sequently in safety, by a wise and generous use of those great
instruments which Providence has placed in their hands ; and
I doubt not that by a wise and liberal policy, and without any
unreasonable sacrifice of private interests, ample means might be
found within the University for giving full life and activity to every
institution or organ of public instruction that exists within it l .
Sedgwick's time was now once more his own ; and in the
next chapter we shall relate the use he made of his emanci-
pation from official cares.
1 Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners^ etc. Fol. Lond. 1852, Evidence, pp.
119, 1 20.
CHAPTER IV.
18521855.
DOMESTIC LIFE. FUNERAL OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
LECTURES AT LEEDS (1852). REFUSES DEANERY OF PETER-
BOROUGH. FIFTH LETTER ON GEOLOGY OF LAKE LAND.
NAVAL REVIEW. GEOLOGY IN WALES. BRITISH ASSOCIATION
AT HULL. VISIT OF THE DUKE OF BRABANT. DEATH OF
DR MILL (1853). ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE AT CAMBRIDGE.
GEOLOGY IN WALES. BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT LIVERPOOL
(1854). PROPOSED PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSION. BRITISH
ASSOCIATION AT GLASGOW. TOUR IN SCOTLAND. LECTURE
AT KENDAL. PUBLICATION OF BRITISH PALEOZOIC ROCKS AND
FOSSILS (1855). GENERAL CRITICISM OF HIS GEOLOGICAL
WORK.
As soon as Sedgwick was set free he hastened to the North
of England, where family business detained him so long
that September was drawing to a close before he could turn
his attention to geology. In pursuance of his scheme for
correlating the rocks of Cumbria with those of Cambria, he
was anxious to re-examine the so-called Caradoc Sandstone
of May Hill, an eminence on the outskirts of the Forest of Dean,
between Gloucester and Ross. The visit, in which McCoy
accompanied him, was a very hurried one, extending only
from 21 September to 29 September, as he was obliged to
be back in College for the Fellowship Examination, and,
moreover, it included an examination of the Malvern Hills.
Sedgwick had time, however, to collect materials for an im-
THE CARADOC SANDSTONE. 231
portant paper, read to the Geological Society 3 November, ,852.
On a proposed Separation of the so-called Caradoc Sandstone ^Et. 67.
into Two distinct Groups ; viz. (i) May Hill Sandstone; (2)
Caradoc Sandstone. It seems to have called forth a lively
discussion, to judge from Sedgwick's reference to the meet-
ing at which it was read, " I was battling at the Geological
Society till near midnight;" and afterwards his patience was
sorely tried by the formalities which delayed its publication.
It was "referred," and "re-referred," so as to exclude all
controversial matter, and it was not until August of the
following year that it found its way into the Journal.
To Miss Isabella Herschel.
CAMBRIDGE, November 12, 1852.
My dear Niece,
Thanks for your charming letter. I fully intended
to reply to it, as well as to your sister's P.S., by the return
post, but after I had written to her I was so direly oppressed
with cold that I could no longer hold up my head. Yesterday
I was completely disabled, stupified, fevered, and with a
racking headache. To-day I am much better ; but in a sorry
condition to write to a young lady about love and marriage.
For I am sitting in my bedroom in a warm dressing-gown,
and with a nightcap on my head ; my eyes are like two lumps
of wet starch ; my ears are roaring as if two water-wheels
were in my head ; my voice is inarticulate and emits unearthly
sounds ; and as for my nose, it is run quite wild. I have,
however, enough of feeling left to rejoice in the happiness of
my friends, and I send them my warmest and truest con-
gratulations. Like a reckless booby that I am I have mislaid
your letter ; but I think you said that December the second
was to be the happy day. But why put it off so very long ?
Had I not been born about 40 years too soon I would have
made love to you in such an ardent manner that you would
surely have been melted, and I should have carried you in
1 See Sedgwick's complaint at this, printed below, p. 255.
232 MARRIAGE OF RICHARD SEDGWICK.
1852. my arms to the altar-rails, while Cara was only thinking about
JEt. 67. j tj anc j then 51^ ^^d have had to dance bare-foot at your
wedding. A wheezing old man makes, however, but a sorry
bridegroom, and, besides, you are my niece, and therefore
within the prohibited degrees ; so we must let your sister
move towards Hymen's portal at her own pace. May her
arrival there be the beginning of a long life of domestic joy !
and may you soon follow her, and be as happy as your
sister !
By the way, I have told you of the ardent manner in which
the Sedgwicks make love when they are young, and set about
it with all their hearts ; and of this I will give you a domestic
example. My nephew Dick (now a B.A. of Trin. Coll. a
Priest and an Incumbent at Norwich) was once, about six
years since, a boy of nineteen, and, naturally enough,
desperately in love with a pretty little girl about three years
younger than himself. But they were separated ; Dick heard
no more of his first love or of her family for full five years ;
and the faithless dog has been in love a dozen times, and once
or twice with his forefoot upon Hymen's threshold. And
how, my dear niece, could it be otherwise ? The Sedgwicks
are all like tinder ; and tinder fires with a spark ; and the fire
of tinder has long, you know, been used in lighting matches.
I returned to Cambridge for the Fellowship Examination,
which begins on the first of October; and Richard was to
leave his father's house on that day that he might be at
Norwich to do his own duty on the third. Judge my
surprise when, about the middle of the week following, Dick
came into my room, and found me in a state of obscuration
behind a big stack of examination papers, and cried out,
' Spare me but one hour for talk I am going to be married
yes, in three weeks to my first love, Mary if you will
but help me ! ' I expanded my eyes, and held up my hands ;
and replied, with some surprise, that I never had suspected
him of keeping up a correspondence with that child. ' Nor
had I,' said he; 'till last Friday evening I never had heard
MARRIAGE OF RICHARD SEDGWICK. 233
whether she was married or single, alive or dead. But listen, 1852.
and I will tell you all.' He then informed me that a ^ 6 7-
stranger whom he met in the train near Bolton told him
about her family how the mother was dead, a sister and a
brother married, &c. Dick then, not unnaturally, asked
about his old love, Mary. 'Oh!' said the stranger, 'she is a
beautiful girl, the admiration of all Bolton. She has had a
dozen offers, but refused them all. She fell in love, when a
child, with a man who is a parson in the South of England,
I am told, and she will hear of love from no one since.'
This set Dick's heart in a flutter. He had to rest at
^Warrington that evening, at the house of an old Quaker
cousin of ours ; and told old Broadbrim how the spirit had
moved him. ' If so, cousin Richard,' said the old Quaker, ' thou
owest obedience to its motions.' Dick assented ; and what
think you ? Ten minutes after dinner the old Quaker (a
venerable man, years older than myself) called his carriage,
and started during a dark night of storm and tempest across
ten miles of wild country to the house where Mary and her
father had been on a visit. They were gone to Blackpool, a
watering-place on the Lancashire coast. So the Quaker went
back ; and Dick next day worked his way to Blackpool. He
saw papa, who received him kindly ; and the moment he saw
Mary they rushed together like two globules of mercury.
Vows were renewed in an instant. ' Let us be married at
once,' said Richard. ' I will make no difficulties,' said papa.
' Mary has never been happy since you parted, but you must
have a house to live in.' ' Then I must go and ask my uncle
to lend me his house,' said my nephew. Accordingly he
started ; and burst into my rooms, as I have stated. I felt
exactly like the old Quaker; promised the full use of my
Norwich house, and the key of my cellar, &c. In short, I
applied a spur rather than a drag-chain Isabella went to
Bolton to help in getting all things ready, and on the 25th of
last month I presented my youthful person to the family there,
and the day following made two young people happy.
234 VISITS THE QUEEN AT WINDSOR.
1852. My new niece is little in stature, with very small hands
Et. 67. anc j f ee t } O f g 00 d figure, fair and ruddy, with beautiful hair
and blue eyes, and a roundish, pretty, happy-looking face.
As you are my niece, you of course want to know all about
your new relation. She and Dick pass through Cambridge
to-rnorrow, and are to dine with me. How I wish you could
be of the party! What a tremendous long gossip I am running
into. But love-stories, like barley-sugar, spin out, you know, to
any length you like. And does not this story prove what I
said before that the Sedgwicks are all warm lovers ? Even
old Quakers with a drop of the family blood are fit to serve
among Hymen's sharpshooters....
Of myself I have no news to tell you, unless I were to
count the number of times I cough or sneeze. So the less
said about myself the better.
Ever, my dear Isabella,
Your affectionate Uncle,
ADAM SEDGWICK.
To Mrs RicJiard Sedgwick.
WINDSOR CASTLE,
Saturday, November 6th, 1852.
Dearest Mary,
I have come over to spend two days with the
Queen, who did me the honour to invite me. 'Tts the Prince,
I suspect, who wants to talk about some reforms at Cambridge ;
and the Queen is always very kind and courteous to all
persons who have any official connection with him. As I
have brought no books with me, and must wait a little
before dinner is ready, I have begun to kill Time (but Time
will have his revenge, and kill every one of us) by writing to
you though in truth I have at this moment nothing to say
except that the wind is howling, and the rain pattering against
the Castle windows. So, good morning, my dear niece !
Sunday Morning, 7 a.m. I have had my early coffee and
attempted a walk on the great castle terrace ; but wind and
VISITS THE QUEEN AT WINDSOR. 235
rain forbad it. By the way, I said good morning yesterday 1852.
when it was almost night. Now I may say good morning with ^t. 67.
very truth. There is a little formality at a Court dinner
before you sit down. All visitors assemble in the Green
Room as it is called, before the Royal party enters. The
gentlemen, when the Queen approaches through a long gallery,
arrange themselves in a rather formal semicircle. She shakes
hands with the ladies, bows to the gentlemen, and then
moves off first. When any foreign Prince is present she takes
his arm, otherwise she marches off with her own husband.
Yesterday Prince Hohenlohe (who married the Queen's half-
sister) was present with his family. He therefore handed out
the Queen, and Prince Albert handed out the Duchess of
Kent, and sat opposite to the Queen; and as usual in the
centre of the table. I was in great luck, as Lord and Lady
Hardwicke were there, whom I know almost intimately;
especially Lady Hardwicke, who is still a handsome woman
with a happy round face ; and you know I like round faces,
and so does Richard, does he not ? And my seat was a very
happy one ; as on my right was the lady in waiting (Lady
Desart) whom I knew when she was a child ; and Miss
Cavendish (one of the Maids of Honour) whom I have known
ever since she was a child was on my left. Our conversation was
anything but formal. Miss Cavendish told me that Colonel
Gordon was just going to marry Miss Herschel (Sir John's
eldest daughter). She (Miss H.) was once at my house at
Norwich, and Isabella knows her well. I praised Miss H. to
the skies, said that she was a 'celestial body,' and that
Gordon would be the happiest man in the world. Miss
Cavendish then turned round, and told the Colonel what I
said, with a little dash of quizzing amplification. In very
truth Miss Herschel is a beautiful young woman, and I said
enough about her to make the ladies talk of her to the Queen
after they retired, for soon after we entered the drawing-
room Her Majesty came up with a very condescending and
cheerful face, and began to ask me questions about Miss
236 VISITS THE QUEEN AT WINDSOR.
l8 5 2 - Herschel. I told the same story I had done to Miss Caven-
t ' 6l ' dish, and said that Miss H. was supremely beautiful, quite
a * celestial body.' ' It is quite right,' replied the Queen,
'that Sir John Herschel's daughter should be 'a celestial
body,' and I rejoice to hear it.' She then asked me questions
about my summer tour and passed on. With the Prince I
had a very long talk about our Report, (I mean the Commis-
sioners' Report) but that is a dull subject. We had no
military music because of the old Duke's death, but the
Queen's private band always plays in one of the drawing-
rooms. The table was very gorgeous. Besides the side-
lights and chandeliers, there were twelve golden branches
(each with four wax lights) on the table, and between each
pair of branches a magnificent silver-gilt vase. About half-
past eleven the Queen rose, the band struck up God save the
Queen, and we all, after walking a little in a long corridor or
gallery, went to our respective dens. Mine is in Lancaster
Tower. I can see John of Gaunt's tower at Lancaster from
the hill immediately south of the village of Dent. So I am
in the right place here, quite at home, am I not ? The long
gallery I spoke of is just 152 yards from end to -end, and is
ornamented with busts and pictures. All the private sets
of rooms diverge from the gallery; and to each tower there
is a separate establishment of servants and housemaids. So
in this vast castle you may be as snug and comfortable as
in a private house. Indeed more snug and comfortable in
some cases; because here you may do what you like, and
keep entirely to yourself if you like. After my early coffee,
I breakfasted with the Master of the Household and the
Queen's Equerries. At 1 1 I am to read the Morning Service.
And now, my dear Mary, what do you think I was talking
about in the drawing-room to Lady Hardwicke ? She said
that she had seen in the papers that I had been at a
marriage. I then told her of your early loves, of Richard's
nocturnal journey with an old Quaker, of my hearty approval
of the kind of game of matrimonial leapfrog &c. And what
DUKE OF WELLINGTONS FUNERAL. 237
do you think Lady H. said in reply ? ' I think/ said she 1852.
laughing, 'that the grave Professor and the old Quaker were yEt - 6 7-
quite as mad as the young people. But it was all for the
best, and I should like very much to see your new niece.'
All the gossip of the day is talked over with the Queen by
the ladies in the drawing-room. So I have no doubt, my
dear Mary, that your love-story has been fairly talked over at
Windsor Castle.
Sunday, \ p.m. I have just returned from the Chapel,
where I have read the Service. In the afternoon I mean to
go to the service at St George's Chapel. There they have a
regular Cathedral service. Tomorrow I return to Cambridge.
There ! I must conclude. My love to Richard.
Ever, dearest Mary,
Yours with the heart's best love,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Mrs RicJiard Sedgwick.
TRIN. COLL., November list, 1852.
Dearest Mary,
I mean to send you a letter, if all be well, by the
early post tomorrow ; and as I shall have very little time for
it I might as well begin it now, before I retire to my bed.
You would make out by my last, that I had given up all
hopes of attending the old Duke's funeral. I should indeed
have very much liked to have seen the last honours paid to so
great and good a man ; and I think I could not have been
present without feeling deeply, and deriving a lasting moral
benefit from the impression. But I was obliged to submit ;
and I did so without murmuring; and I did feel a deep
emotion, sometimes producing a sinking, and sometimes a
kind of devotional swell, of spirits, as I stood on Thursday
night, at my solitary window, and listened to the solemn
moan of the dumb-peal that sounded from St Mary's tower.
What thoughts came back to my mind as I stood and
listened ? All my early life was passed during years of war
and blood-shed. I well remember the death of Lewis the i6th,
238 LORD NELSON'S DEATH.
1852. though I was then but seven years old. I remember the
Et. 67. exultation at all the great victories of Nelson ; and the
exultation was then, I think, far greater than was ever called
forth by the victories of the great Duke in Spain. For
nations and kingdoms were falling, year by year, before the
conquering sword of France. Between us and France seemed
to be a struggle for life or death. The power that had
swallowed up Europe, threatened to devour us, and was
hovering within sight of the British coasts. England had
then 500,000 men in arms. Even the peaceful Universities
were banded, armed, and exercised. Such was the condition
of England when I came hither in 1804 as a Freshman.
The next year, 1805, was a year of desolation to the
Continent, but, at the critical moment, by one mighty blow,
Nelson crushed to atoms the naval force of France ; and from
that time all immediate fears for our houses and homes were
at an end. With mixed feelings of sorrow most deep for
the loss of a great deliverer of joy and gladness inex-
pressible for so great a triumph won at a moment which
seemed the crisis of England's fate came the news of the
great victory of Trafalgar. I was then on a sick bed, in great
personal danger (of which I was myself not conscious) and
hardly conscious of what was passing ; but I urged my nurses
so vehemently that they were forced to comply ; and they
rolled me up in the sheets and blankets, and bore me to the
window ; where I saw the illuminations in the street near the
great gate, and listened with half-delirious but deep sorrow
to the booming of the muffled bells which were sounding for
the dead hero. And after 47 years, in the same great court
of Trinity College, am I now, in my old age, listening to the
same solemn peal, sounding the accents of a nation's sorrow
for a hero greater than Nelson ! These, my dear Mary, were
the kind of thoughts on which I fed on Thursday night.
But I must not write any more about my thoughts. I
have had a very kind letter from your papa, and it is plain
that you cannot have the happiness of seeing him at this time.
DOMESTIC GOOD WISHES. 239
So far as I am concerned, it is better that he should visit 1852.
Cambridge at another time ; as I am still almost a prisoner, ^ 6
and cannot yet dine in Hall. I did lecture on Friday and
Saturday, but not without pain to myself, and I yesterday
caught a little additional cold : but this quiet day of rest,
which I have spent by my good warm fireside, has set me up
again. There was an excellent sermon, I am told, preached at
St Mary's Church by Professor Blunt 1 , which I should have
liked to hear, but I could not go with any safety to my own
voice. Your father writes in a way to make me blush. I do
not deserve any praise from him. I have only obeyed the
impulse of my heart ; and only done towards you that which,
if left undone, would have made me unhappy. To you, my
darling, I owe an infinite obligation. Have you not given
me a loving little niece a young creature whom in my old
age I can love and honour as a family treasure, and in whose
happiness I can find a treasure of happiness for myself? You
and Richard are to me as a son and a daughter. If I can be
of use to you, 'tis so far well ; and you pay me back a
hundred-fold by kind looks and kind words coming from the
heart. Don't talk of obligation. Tell me that you love me,
and I will believe it ; and tell me that you are happy, and I
shall rejoice at it, and be happy along with you. Your letter
was just the letter I like sweet fireside gossip. I hear
you are to dine en famille with Mr Wodehouse on Tuesday.
I hope you like my god-daughter Alice. She was always a
pet of mine. Tell her I send her a paternal kiss. Give
my love also to her sister. I meant only to write a few
lines ; but the moment I began to write to you I fancied I
was talking to you, and that you were looking up in my face,
and asking me to go on. But I must now stop. So with a
paternal kiss I say good night, and may God bless you and
your husband, and give you His grace to make you good and
happy !
1 A Sermon in Memory of the late Duke of Wellington. By Rev. Joh. Ja.
Blunt, B.D. Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity.
240 NELSON AND WELLINGTON.
1852. Monday morning. I was bewitched to go on writing. I
JEt. 67. meant to go to bed at ten, and I did not retire till after
eleven. In fact a long day had been spent almost in solitude.
So, when I began to gossip upon paper, I felt happy and
went on. What a contrast there was between Nelson and
Wellington ! Nelson was vain, fond of popular admira-
tion, warmhearted, and a creature of impulse ; capable of
committing acts of egregious folly ; and all the latter years
of his life I believe unhappy, because dissatisfied with
himself. His sailors adored him, and so did his personal
friends. Wellington had no vanity, cared little for popular
applause, perhaps despised it, was stern to those under his
command, rigid in discipline, and not personally beloved by
his soldiers ; was guided through life by the maxims of
common sense, had no poetry in his system, seemed in public
life incapable of committing any act of folly, and almost
incapable of making a mistake ; calm, prescient, and of
indomitable resolution when the means of victory were in his
hands. Duty, not glory, was his watchword. He seemed a
being raised up by Providence to do a work memorable in the
history of civilized and christianized man, and he died
quietly in his own bedroom, after the nation (as the natural
inheritance of his victories) had been living almost forty years
in peace. You know all this, dear Mary, and why should I
write it ? Because, though I have nothing to tell you that
is new, I like to have a gossip with you while John is
preparing my breakfast. Were my lungs better I would come
over some Saturday after my lecture, and spend Sunday
with you ; but in my present croaking state, I could not
travel with safety, and if I did come I should make a
noise like the bird of ill omen.
I wish there were an artist in Norwich one might trust to
take your portrait. I should like to have it, and put it on
the other side of the glass, to match that of Isabella. But to
effect this we need not be in a great hurry only watch the
occasion. Thurlburn is come back and I must shut up this
DOMESTIC HAPPINESS. 241
sheet or miss the post. So good morning. I must reluc- 1852.
tantly conclude, with my blessing and love to you both. ^ 6 '
Ever, dearest Mary,
Affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
The marriage which Sedgwick has described so graphi-
cally and so humorously in his letter to Miss Herschel was
a source of infinite gratification to him. Our task will have
been imperfectly performed, if we have not shewn that he was
romantic as well as affectionate. The stories he took most
pleasure in telling were those in which love had been victorious
over difficulties ; and the mere fact that Richard Sedgwick
was about to marry a lady whom he had once been forbidden
to marry, was in itself a passport to his good-will. At first
he was somewhat shocked at what seemed to him indecent
haste. "Old Hymen's chariot," he said, "used to drag on
slowly, and only got to the terminus after many a halt to
take in the needful supplies ; but now he moves at a railroad
speed, and is personified by one of the drivers of the Great
Western Express 1 ." But, before many days were over, he
was deep in considerations about a suitable wedding-present,
and on the wedding-day probably no one echoed more
approvingly than he did the cry of the bystanders : " It's all
right now, the young ones have got their way!" Again, he
had reached an age when home had greater charms than
general society ; and he delighted in the prospect of having
"a dear daughter" as he called his niece from his first
introduction to her to brighten his old house at Norwich.
Nor did this feeling wear off as time went on. Most old
bachelors would have disliked the interference with their
ordinary habits which such a change in their household
arrangements involved. Sedgwick, on the contrary, made
light of cares and difficulties; and he was rewarded by
finding in his nephew's wife and children a compensation for
having none of his own.
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 3 October, 1852.
s. ii. 1 6
242 LECTURES AT LEEDS,
18521 To Mrs Richard Sedgwick.
t- 6 7- DENT, December 2$rd, 1852.
Dearest Mary,
I promised to write again from Dent, and as I
only arrived here at 10 p.m. yesterday, you must allow that I
am pretty punctual in the performance of my promise. The
celebration of the 5OOth anniversary of Corpus Christi College
detained me at Cambridge on the i6th. I meant to have
gone to Leeds that day ; but Prince Albert informed me,
through his secretary, that he could not attend in person, and
that I must, if possible, attend and answer for him. So there
was no help for it. I did attend, and saw a sumptuous feast,
of which I hardly dared to taste. We had several good hearty
speeches. I spoke very early, in reply to the health of our
Chancellor, Prince Albert ; and, as all geologists improve
their lungs by mountain climbing, they naturally become
rather long-winded. This may partly account for the fact
that my speech was unmercifully long the longest spoken
that evening. I returned to my chambers before midnight.
Retired and slept till five, when I rose and lighted my fire,
and began to pack my maps and drawings of big beasts, and
my geological sections, &c v sipping my coffee at intervals.
About half-past six my servant came an hour behind the
appointed time. He packed, and I grumbled, and between
packing and grumbling I forgot my memorandum-book, out
of which I was to spin a portion of my Leeds lectures. At
half-past seven I was off. There was a halt at Peterborough
for the northern express, which allowed me to lay in store a
good solid breakfast. That done, I found my way to Leeds
by 3 p.m. My friends met me, and conveyed me and my
baggage to the great room of the Philosophical Society.
There I unrolled my big beasts, gave orders to certain work-
men about fixing them, and then went to a friend's house
where I had ordered dinner yes! ordered dinner, for I had
written to the lady of the house, and told her if she hoped to
hear me lecture, to provide me a basin of plain mutton-broth,
LECTURES AT LEEDS. 243
and a nursery pudding. So I dined simply enough then 1852.
threw myself on a bed for an hour drank a cup of coffee ^ t> 6
and at half-past seven went to the lecture-room. My beasts
were all glorious to behold. The audience consisted of about
300, or perhaps 350 many petticoat-wearing bipeds among
them. My beasts roared most harmoniously, and the assem-
bled party sat silently watching their gambols, and listening
to their ancient music, for two mortal hours.... We got
lome a little after midnight I think.
After breakfast we went down to prepare my sections and
pictures for the lecture at the Mechanics Institution on Monday
evening. You know, my darling, what a sweet voice I have,
especially when I am recovering from a bad cold; so they
resolved that I should hold forth in the Music Hall, and
>undry carpenters, and other cunning persons, were put in
requisition to construct a great framework to hold my maps
and plans and pictures. . It was made to stretch across the
orchestra, just before the steps where, in common concerts,
the fiddlers and tweedledee operators stand all in a row.
But mine was not a common concert, being confined to
one wind-instrument.... Next day (Sunday) I attended the
New Old Church at Leeds and heard Dr Hook. In the
afternoon Mr James Marshall called by appointment, and
drove me to his brother's house, about four miles out of
Leeds. I had a very pleasant visit, and some glorious
games at romps with two young boys. The youngest,
about three years old, I called William the Conqueror.
'You shall call me William the Conqueror/ said the child,
'if I may ride on your back.' So we were not long in
striking a bargain. Next day they drove me to Leeds in
good time. I ate a nice lunch-dinner at two ; and then went
to my bedroom to rehearse my long piece of wind- music
for the concert-room in the evening. It was crammed to the
utmost. Full 1200 I was told were present on the floor
three-fourths of them members of the Mechanics Institute.
I never addressed a more patient and attentive Class. They
1 6 2
244 LECTURES AT LEEDS.
1852. were silent as death ; except when there was a pause, and
it 6l ' then they all applauded heartily yet modestly. Only think !
I went on at full speed for two hours and twenty minutes,
during which I told them of many ups and downs in the old
world ; of many generations past and gone, which had left
no living progeny ; of rain, hail, storm and tempest ; of
gravel, glaciers, and boulder-stones ; of the great Gulf Stream
which puts the west side of England in a warm vapour-bath,
etc., etc. And then they thanked me ; and I bowed, and
looked modest. Next day (Tuesday) I parted with my
friends at Leeds, packed my papers and pictures, and put
them on the way towards their old resting-place in Cam-
bridge. I then looked at one or two manufactories and the
beautiful church built by the Marshalls. Who would have
ever thought that men could spin such beautiful churches out
of flax ! With them by a modern transmutation little
thought of by the old alchemists threads of flax are turned
into threads of gold, and these threads can draw big blocks of
stone after them quite as readily, I suspect, as Amphion's
whistle which you have read of.
Then by train to Halifax, where I spent a very pleasant,
but grave and quiet evening, with Archdeacon and Mrs
Musgrave. They are very old and dear friends of mine.
Yesterday morning the wind blew over the Yorkshire moors
fiercely and coldly. The hill-tops were grisly with snow, but at
Bradford and all along the banks of the Aire the temperature
was warmer. I reached Dent about ten. All well. We sat
by the kitchen fire, till half-past one, talking about you and
Richard, and relieving the monotony of the subject by a few
puffs of a cigar. And then we returned to the old subject,
and talked you over and over again. Write soon. All send
their warmest love to you and Richard. May God bless you
both.
Ever, my dear little round-faced niece,
Your affectionate old uncle,
A. SEDGWICK.
LECTURES AT LEEDS. 245
The first of these two lectures was on " The Comparative 1853.
Anatomy of the Megatherium, the Mylodon, and other large &* 68 -
fossil Edentata]" the subjects he had selected for his lecture
at Ipswich in I848 1 . The second was "On glacial phe-
nomena in connection with the history of erratic blocks."
The Report of the Mechanics Institution for 1852 thus
commemorates the lecture :
The Committee refer with feelings of the deepest pleasure and
gratitude to the last lecture on the list, that delivered gratuitously
by the Rev. Professor Sedgwick; in which one of the most interesting
questions in the physical history of the earth's surface was discussed
with an union of profound knowledge and familiarity of expression
that rendered the discourse as captivating as it was instructive.
To Miss Gerard.
CAMBRIDGE, January i6tk, 1853.
"...I spent a delightful quiet Christmas [at Dent] which
did my heart good I went one day with Isabella to call on
an old dame (that is, at Dent, your name for any old woman
of low estate) whom I had known when I was a child, who
had often dandled me in her arms, and was a fine, tall,
rosy-faced, merry, young woman, when I was a very little
boy. My niece carried the 'auld dame' a little Christmas
present. Old as she was, she had still a little of her original
freshness of colour, and evident traces of the finer features
of her early years. Though very poor, and living on a small
parish allowance, helped out by small dealings with sweets
and gingerbread, and a little benevolence from those who
respected her cheerful, contented, Christian, old age, she was
as clean in her person and her house, as if she were a lady's
waiting-maid. When my niece told her who I was, she
started from her chair, grasped my hand firmly, and cried
out: 'Oh Adam, is it ye? Many a lang year is gone sen I
I tought ye to loup off Battersby's trough! But oh! its kind
1 See above, p. 150. The Minutes of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
shew that six years previously (20 March, 1842) he had read to the Society "An
account of Professor Owen's Memoir on the Skeleton of the Mylodon, and on the
structure and habits of certain extinct genera of gigantic sloths."
246 AN OLD DAME AT DENT.
1853. ' 7 e to come an see me '' Trough, in the Dent dialect,
ALt. 68. means tombstone ; and, considerably more than 60 years
since, she had held my hand while I learnt to leap from
this curious old monument... 1
The old dame soon afterwards sang me a bit of an old
carol she had, I dare say, sung to me before, about 64 years
since. I told her of my nephew's marriage to his first love.
'Its weel, its weel,' she cried, 'ther's nae luck i' stopping the
stream of true love ! They stopped him five years sen ; but
now the young anes ha hed ther way, God bless 'em ! An
its o' God's ordering ! what is to be, will be, an o' the world
cannot stop it ! ' What do you think of this specimen of
primitive philosophy, spoken with a full clear voice by a
woman above ninety ?..."
Sedgwick's own opinions did not differ greatly from those
of his old nurse, though he did not venture to proclaim them
with such decision. At this time, whatever might be his
employment, his thoughts were constantly reverting to the
young household at Norwich, and a brisk interchange of
letters attests his practical interest in all that concerned his
nephew and niece. Additions to the furniture or the plate
the replenishment of the cellar a delicacy for the table
social arrangements for his next Residence are each the
subject of a long epistle. Nor does he forget to intersperse
these matters with others of more serious import. He does
not give formal lectures, but kindly suggestions, delicately
and tenderly conveyed for religious exercises, or conduct, or
reading, or household management the sort of advice that a
father might send to a daughter whom accident had deprived
of her mother. Most of these letters are too private to be
printed as they were written, nor would they be generally
interesting; but occasionally an extract may be quoted.
The following refers to some lessons in music, the cost of
which he had arranged to defray.
1 The omitted passage contains the story of Battersby, related above, Vol. I.
p. ii.
WELCOME ! 247
To Mrs Richard Sedgwick. 1853.
TRIN. COLL., January i$th, 1853. &* 68 -
"...You must make no objections on this score. I am a
despot, and never allow my nephews and nieces to object
to anything I say or do in my own house. And indeed I am
often unreasonable during the spring months. Suppressed
gout comes upon me in February, and for four or five months
quite changes my nature. It takes away my power of
sleeping, and makes me so cross and unreasonable that I am
ashamed of myself almost every hour of the day at some act
or other of querulous folly. So you will have much to endure
while you are my guest ! For suppressed gout is first cousin
to insanity, and mad people, you know, always behave ill to
those they loved best before their malady. So every angry
look and bitter word you must try to set down to the score of
my present love, now that I am in sound mind ; for I think I
am now in sound mind, and I am sure that I love you and
Isabella as if you were twin daughters, and my own flesh and
blood...."
Two days later he learnt that his nephew and his bride
were coming to pay him a visit at Cambridge :
To tJte same.
TRIN. COLL., January \6th, 1853.
...Nothing could have been better contrived. So on
Monday, the 24th of this month, you will, I hope, be happily
drinking tea, and telling love-stories, in my college rooms
tales and talk of domestic love, and hope, and Christian joy,
reflected in happy faces ! If we have these delights we need
not care much for the weather.... It delights me to think
that you are happy at the thoughts of a Cambridge visit.
I am never so happy as when I am among young people
whom I love....
With his usual hospitality Sedgwick got up a dinner-
party and an evening-party for his guests ; and when it was
time to return to Norwich he went with them as far as Ely,
248 REFUSES DEANERY OF PETERBOROUGH.
1853. to shew them the Cathedral. Before long he spent a month
JEt. 68. j n their society, for this year February was one of his months
of Residence at Norwich. The weather was execrable the
streets blocked with snow and the Close deserted. " How
dull I should have been," he wrote, " but for my own happy
fire-side!" There, however, he found domestic enjoyments
which made up for the shortcomings of the outer world. In
the way of serious work there was the composition of a
course of Lent sermons ; in the evenings music, or reading
aloud for his niece's gratification. His letters shew that he
was thoroughly happy.
During April and May he was again in Residence. In
those months we hear less of quiet, and more of the usual round
of hospitality. Visits from Dr and Mrs Vaughan, and from
Bishop Monk, gave him much pleasure. Early in May
he was offered the Deanery of Peterborough. " Whatever
may be your decision," wrote Lord Aberdeen, " it will at all
events be matter of satisfaction to myself that I should have
the means of marking the high sense I entertain of your
services in the cause of religion and of science." In antici-
pation of the official letter Sedgwick's old friend Lord
Fitzwilliam had written four days previously : " It will be an
inexpressible pleasure to me to see you settled in a place
which will afford us constant means of intercourse." Sedg-
wick, however, was deaf to the voices of these charmers.
Without any hesitation, as it would appear, he refused, in a
firm, but most full and courteous, letter to the Prime Minister.
" I have lived too long to be ambitious," he writes, " so the
increased ecclesiastical rank has no temptations for me ; and
I believe that the remnant of my life would be more usefully
and more happily employed in doing the duties of the offices
I now fill than in undertaking others arising out of high
position in the Church.... At Norwich (a place of most pesti-
lent party-spirit) I have tried to be a peace-maker, and I
preach what I believe to be Christian truth to a large and
attentive congregation. At Cambridge my lectures are still
FIFTH LETTER ON LAKE DISTRICT. 249
popular, and my class-room full ; and I think (perhaps it is 1853.
an old man's vanity) that I have the power of producing &* 68 -
a good moral influence by raising my voice against a kind
of dreamy pantheistical philosophy which tries to lift up
its head among academical men. Besides, I have works
on hand, which (if God spare my health) will take me two
more years to finish.... Pray forgive me for writing at this
length. I am very anxious your Lordship should understand
my motives, and I should grieve that you should think me
a moral coward, or a disloyal son of the Church of England,
in declining the dignity you offer me."
Residence at Norwich ended, Sedgwick returned to
Cambridge. Trinity College offered a melancholy contrast
to his home in the Close. "The college," he tells Mrs
Sedgwick, " is almost empty ; and those who are here seem
to be dressing their feathers for a summer's flight, so your
old uncle will at least have elbow-room. But oh ! how I
shall want the dear society of those whom I love ! Isabella
and Fanny gone for nearly a year, and my daughter Mary no
longer at my elbow to cheer me with her smile, and gladden
my heart with her gentle laugh and happy gossip, in field or
at fire-side. Pray write soon. If there is anything you want
that I can get for you, do ask me, and I shall love you all the
better for asking 1 ."
A new edition of Hudson's Complete Guide to the Lakes
being required, Sedgwick was asked by the publisher to
make any changes he thought proper in his four Letters,
the last of which had been written, it will be remembered, in
1 8461 He was unable to attend to the matter when Mr
Hudson first communicated with him ; and by the time he
was at leisure, the original letters had been reprinted. He
therefore wrote a fifth Letter (dated 23 June, 1853), embody-
ing the results of his two last visits to Lake Land in 1851
and 1852, and the changes which he now proposed to make
1 To Mrs Richard Sedgwick, 10 June, 1853.
- For an account of these Letters see Vol. i. pp. 246 249 : Vol. ii. pp. 39 41 ; 102.
250 FIFTH LETTER ON LAKE DISTRICT.
1853- in "the comparative nomenclature and classification of the
i ' 68> natural groups of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and their
co-ordination with the natural groups of North and South
Wales." These subjects occupy less than half the letter; the
rest is devoted, in the main, to a vindication of his own
position with regard to "the nomenclature of the older
palaeozoic groups;" in other words, to an exposition of his
views regarding the true limits of Cambria and Siluria. It
closes with an eloquent tribute to the memory of the three
great men whose acquaintance he had made among the
mountains in past years, Dalton, Southey, and Wordsworth 1 .
The following letter, though it was written some months
after the publication of the Guide, and therefore anticipates
our narrative to a certain extent, still belongs, in the main, to
this place. It contains a very candid and natural explana-
tion of his reasons for speaking and writing as he had done ;
and it holds out a hope that no permanent rancour against
his old associate could be possible. This hope, alas ! was
delusive ; and he brooded over his wrongs (as he considered
them) with a bitterness that increased as years went on,
until at last he declined to meet Murchison, even on the
common ground of a scientific gathering.
CAMBRIDGE, October \Wi, 1853.
My dear Murchison,
...I [have written] another Letter on the Lake
Country (no longer, alas ! to old Poet Wordsworth, but to
the editor of his essay), and I left a copy of these letters at
the Geological Society addressed to you. I hope you won't
think my last Letter ill-tempered. If so, set it down to the
fiend gout.
I am delighted with the tone of your letter 2 . It is frank
and friendly, as it ought to be, and as your letters used to be.
1 This passage has been already quoted, Vol. i. p. 248.
2 A long letter describing the results of a tour in Germany, in the course of
which he had visited some of the ground traversed in former years by himself
and Sedgwick. The most important passages have been printed by Mr Geikie,
Life of Murchison, ii. 154 156.
LETTER TO MURCHISON. 251
Two or three things helped to set my back up. I know that 1853.
I am a great procrastinator partly from temperament, partly ^ t 68>
from multitudinous engagements that pull hard at me, and
chiefly from a condition of health which, for months and
months together, makes writing and sedentary work very
very irksome, and almost impossible. Still, though a man is
behind time with his rent, he rather grumbles when he finds,
on coming back to his premises, that a neighbour has turned
out his furniture, taken possession, and locked the door upon
him. This was exactly what you did ; and so completely,
unexpectedly, and without notice, that the first time I ever
heard of your having Silurianized the map of Wales was
from that parasitic geologist Knipe. He it was that told
me you had bought his map that you had talked about
the colours and that under your direction he had laid on
the colours, etc. He was urging me to buy his map, which
I did not do at that time. I do not remember the exact
year; but it was a considerable time several years after
the Silurian System was out. I confess that this both
surprised and vexed me. But I had no real anxiety about
the result. Good cards were in my hands, if I could only
play them ; and neither then, nor ever afterwards, had I the
shadow of a doubt that I could make good my classification
and nomenclature. I was the only man in England who had
all the cards in hand, and knew how to sort them, so as to
tell on the whole case. I was content with the old nomen-
clature, and anxious only about one or two points relating
to the demarcations.
The next thing that nettled me was Warburton's strange,
and as I thought suspicious conduct, when he undertook to
look to the reduction of two or three of my papers 1 . He
worked away while I was at Norwich ; but refused to let me
see a single proof-sheet. I knew that he was, in truth, very
ignorant of the subject he took in hand ; for the knowledge
he had was one-sided all from your book, and nothing from
1 Journal of Geological Society, 1845, Vol. i. pp. 522.
252 SEDGWICK AND WARBURTON.
1853. survey. And, believing that he knew the whole case, while
JEt. 68. he had only looked into a small part of it, he set to work in
ignorant confidence, and, I verily believe, thought he was
doing me a favour while he was altering the names of the
colours on my sketch-map, which he tried to copy.... By
suspicious I mean that I thought he treated me as if he
thought me a bit of a rogue ; and I wrote to him, more than
once, demanding the proof-sheets, and telling him that my
reduction would pass under his eye, and that, if unfair, he
might suppress any part of it, as he thought right, etc., etc.
You must remember that in my great big sketch-map I
gave one colour to the upper (or true) Silurians including
therein the May Hill Sandstone, north of the Holyhead road,
which is coloured yellow and called Caradoc in the Govern-
ment map (assuredly one of their great mistakes). The
lower Silurians, Caradoc and Llandeilo, and all the Cam-
brians, down to the Menai, had one colour ; but I stated
that I did this because no good demarcation had been made
out between them. This great spread of one colour I called
Protozoic = Lower Silurian + Cambrian. Warburton altered
this, and published his reduction of my papers with the title
of the colours, in which he made Protozoic = Lower Silurian.
I believe he did this in ignorance, and not at all in treachery,
and I declare, upon my honour, that for several years after,
and not till long after you and I began to wrangle, did I
ever look at the Warburtonian explanation of the colours, or
suspect that he had dared (in over confidence in himself) to
make any unauthorized change. This you will find stated in
my new Letter. Now this fact explains what I allude to in
the Letter. When I called on De la Beche to get one or two
of his South Welsh published sections in 1846 (before I went
to South Wales and Llandeilo which I had never seen since
I saw it with you in 1834) he said to me: ' Sedgwick, you
have given up a very good nomenclature ! ' I replied that I
had given up no nomenclature that the only difficulty was
in the demarcations, which, before long, would be put right,
WELSH SECTIONS. 253
etc. I think it was in the autumn of the same year (but I 1853.
cannot be certain) that I learnt from De la Beche something ^ 68>
about the unconformity and thinning off of the so-called
Caradoc, which in point of fact was not represented in the
Llandeilo sections. This delighted me, for the Llandeilo
sections (after my visit in 1 846) still presented a very great
difficulty, which would be cleared away by the unconformable
overlap of the group over the Llandeilo saddle and on the
south side of it. On this point I wrote more than once to
Jukes, who told me they had given up the notion of uncon-
formity that the sequence was unbroken, etc. This news
bothered me, and I did not believe it ; and when the great
map of the Survey appeared, two years since, I felt as certain
as I could do of my existence that the yellow colour (called
middle Silurian] was the colour of a great unconformable
deposit between my Cambrians and your Silurians. It did,
however, appear certain that the yellow colour included two
groups of fossils one undoubted Silurian (or Wenlock) the
other undoubted Cambrian (e.g. Caer Caradoc section). If
this were true there must be an overlap, and in the inter-
vening yellow colour the fossils of two systems were in-
extricably blended. I believed in this overlap, because you
and Phillips and the naturalists of the Survey asserted it.
I do not blame you, because you leant on the naturalists'
determination; but it is impossible not to say that herein
Salter and Forbes very strangely blundered the more to be
wondered at because Phillips had stated the leading facts
quite correctly, though he had not (as it seems to me) the
moral courage to draw the legitimate conclusion from his
own excellent premises.
I am writing ding-dong, to save the early post, and I
have overshot my game, for I was very frankly telling you
what had set my back up, after there was a dispute between
us. After the Government map was out, I could no longer
stand idle. I stood to my guns, and brought my case fairly
out. I have read the paper over, and I think, in fact and
254 COUNCIL OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
language it is reasonable and not disrespectful to any one,
and that the Council made an egregious blunder when they
ordered it to be burked after it was printed. This was a
grievous personal insult, by no means wiped off by with-
drawing the foolish order. I have a copy of the order ; and
if it be directed against me (and my name only appears), it
contains an assertion that is false (I write the plain word
advisedly), for it states that I had not complied with the
rules and directions of the Council, or words to that effect.
The assertion may, however, apply to someone else. I mean
(now that I have been permitted to see the Minute] to demand
of the Council, not as a favour but as a right, that the order
be expunged, or, at least, that a note be entered on the same
page to the effect that the person alluded to (as having acted
against the previous order of the Council) was not myself,
and that I had acted throughout in strict conformity to rule.
If this demand be not complied with, I cannot, in honour,
remain any longer a member of the Geological Society ; for
their books will contain a statement which is greatly to my
discredit, and at the same time not true. When the dis-
cussion took place at the reading of this paper those who
spoke were all against me. But who were they ? Men who
were already booked and committed to the other side who
had taken a position, and must fight for it and who had
taken their position under a positive mistake as to my
own previous paper, in which (misled by Warburton's
audacious blunder) they supposed that I had abandoned my
old nomenclature. They also spoke, while still in ignorance
of their own blunder about the so-called Caradoc ; wherein
lay the whole pith of the question. But let this at present
pass. What followed ? You, my dear Murchison, made a
grievous mistake of judgment in sending (before my abstract
was out) your own abstract of the evening's work along with
Forbes' paltry squib 1 . No man (gout or no gout) likes to be
1 Sedgwick is wrong in his dates here. An abstract of his paper, with a
tabular view of his classification, appears in The Literary Gazette for 6 March,
COUNCIL OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 255
treated as a fool and made an object of scoff to the groundlings. .1853.
Lastly, in my paper of last year I ended with a good rub &* 68>
at the logic of the Survey, but in perfectly courteous language.
I thought the Council would object to the passage, which
was at the end of the paper. They did object, and I struck
it out, and there was no reason (that I know of) why my
short paper should not have appeared in the first number of
the Quarterly Journal that came out after it was read
(3 November, 1852). But it was put off then, and again put
off, and at length it appeared this autumn, after two papers
by the Survey, in which the exact views of McCoy and
myself were at length adopted. When my paper was read,
it was nibbled at by Forbes, and directly attacked by Salter.
This delay was, I think, a needless insult upon me ; and a
stupid insult, because the dates, after all, tell the true tale to
anyone who reads them.
I have been writing very plainly, as I always would do to
an old friend. Judging only by my own collection McCoy
has long fought against any notion of an overlap. ' I see
no proof of it/ he said, 'in your collection, and I don't
believe it. If/ said he, 'the fossils of May Hill be in the
same group with those of Horderly and Caer Caradoc I will
give up palaeontology as long as I live.' We went last year
to the localities, and you know the result. We were only
five days at work this summer in the field. I could not
stand the wet, and was out only two days ; and was then
1852 ; Murchison's first letter in the same Journal, 20 March, 1852. It concludes
with the following verses by Professor E. Forbes.
Two famous geologists, earnest and true,
Through Wales ran a race to find something new.
The one came in first, and a world did discover,
The other came last, for he got a roll over.
Silurian beds we in myriads number,
Cambrian strata 'stat nominis umbra.'
S says M knows not his beds when he's got 'em,
That his system is base, and his base has no bottom ;
Whilst M makes appeal to the sense of mankind,
Whether he should be stifled, 'cause S lagged behind.
256 TRUE BASE OF SILURIAN SYSTEM.
1853. confined to my room by English cholera. But we did some
-ffit. 68. g od work. The Pentamerus Limestone is at the bottom
of the May Hill group, and is the true base of the Silurian
system. It is a part of the unconformable series. The
Olenus shales of the Malverns (Phillips) are what I have
called Caradoc shale, and are in the Caradoc sections, where
they ought to be. But I now believe that seven or eight
years since I mistook the upper bridge over the Onny for
the lower bridge, and thereby carried the Caradoc shale so
far down the river as to make it overlap the line where the
Pentamerus beds probably pass the river. McCoy could see
nothing, because of the floods of the Onny, which this year
(as the last) covered the upper parts of the section. But
Mr Duppa had (at my request) made excavations which
set all right. McCoy and Salter both told me, years since,
that I must have blundered about one of the localities of my
Caradoc shale; but I obstinately stuck to my note-book,
though it made against myself, for it would have been a
formidable example of an overlap between true Cambrians
and true Silurians. I mean to give a short paper on what
we did, and it will, perhaps, be the last paper with which I
shall ever trouble the Geological Society, which of late years
has, I think, treated me rather scurvily. I must conclude....
I have written very frankly as I should have wished you to
write to me... Ever (whether in peace or war) your affection-
ate old friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
The Letter written, Sedgwick set to work with McCoy on
the third Fasciculus of their joint catalogue. Two had been
already published, and McCoy was sanguine enough to hope
that another would be ready by the end of the summer.
Their own progress, however, depended on that of their artist,
and, unfortunately, a number of the lithographic stones were
so seriously damaged on their way to London, that the
figures had to be redrawn. This accident did not merely
BYRON'S SARDANAPALUS. 257
retard the publication of their work for a year; it de- 1853.
tained them so long in London that a proposed visit to -^ 68 -
certain parts of North Wales was all but abandoned.
The last week in August came before they were ready to
start.
It must not be supposed that Sedgwick passed the whole
summer in steady application to a single task. Occasionally,
indeed, he spent a quiet week in Cambridge ; but such brief
periods of repose were succeeded by some exciting expedition ;
a visit to London, or Chobham, or Portsmouth, to which
latter place he was attracted by various experiments and
manoeuvres incidental to the coming Naval Review. He
visited the dockyard and the fleet, dined on board The
Arrogant, and generally saw all that was to be seen. The
following extracts from his correspondence illustrate his
proceedings during these summer months.
To Mrs Richard Sedgivick.
LONDON, June igtb, 1853.
"...We had a delightful quiet day [at Harrow] and I
returned in the cool of the evening. Yesterday I was able
to write a little for the press. In the evening I went to
the Princess's Theatre to see Sardanapalus 1 . The scenery
glorious, and the costumes all borrowed from Layard's illus-
trations. The tragedy, though containing many fine passages,
is rather heavy, and the acting was not excellent. But the
costumes, and music, and oriental dances, and the views of
Nineveh, and the final conflagration of the great palace, were
really wonderful. The Queen and a large Court party were
present ; and the theatre was filled almost to suffocation. I
had secured a front seat in one of the dress-boxes, and
saw all without any inconvenience. I wish you had been
with me...."
1 Lord Byron's tragedy was produced at the Princess's Theatre, 13 June, 1853,
for the benefit of Mr and Mrs C. Kean. It was played for 61 nights to crowded
houses.
S. II. I 7
258 THE NAVAL REVIEW.
1853. To Miss F. Hicks.
Et. 68. CAMBRIDGE, July 27 tk, 1853.
"...In the evenings, about seven, I turn out and take a long
walk, so as to return to tea a little after nine. Indeed
3'esterday I was not back till half-past nine. I went almost
to Milton then struck across the country, and passed old
Mother Woodcock's monument 1 , which I had not seen for
many a long year. The big black-thorn hedge has been
stubbed up, so at present no one can form a notion of the
sheltered place into which she crept, and where she remained
without food for eight entire days...."
To the same, and Mrs Richard Sedgwick.
PORTSMOUTH, August 13^, 1853.
"...On Thursday [n August] I had my morning coffee
early, and a peep towards Spithead. A fine morning, but
hazy seawards every prospect of a glorious day. A little
after nine we embarked on board a quick steamer, and ran to
Spithead. I never beheld anything so exciting. The shore,
ramparts, and indeed every piece of swelling ground, from
Portsmouth Point to Southsea Castle, was covered with
people in tens of thousands. It had become quite clear and
sunny, and all the hills above Brading seemed to be dark
with wood, but on looking through a glass it was at once
manifest that it was a mighty wood of human bipeds that
crowned all the higher elevations. And as for the bright sea
(on the west to a point beyond Cowes, and on the east so far
as eye could reach, and far beyond the limits of the Isle),
it was covered with vessels of all sizes : beautiful white-sailed
yachts in many hundreds, sporting on the water like butter-
flies in the air dark-coloured coasting-vessels pressed into
the gay service of the day pilot-boats of all sizes steam-
boats innumerable (literally innumerable for I tried in vain to
count them) and down the middle of the mass, that looked
like a gigantic floating city, rose majestically the long line
1 See above, p. 138.
THE NAVAL REVIEW. 259
of the ships of war, rising into the air like the spires and 1853.
pinnacles of churches and vast cathedrals, out of and far ^ 68 -
above the steam-chimneys and lesser elevations of the
multitudinous masts that were around them. I never was
more astonished and enchanted.
About 10.30 the Admiral fired a gun. Then each of
twenty vessels of war fired a Royal salute. They bellowed
with the voice of continued thunder, and seemed to fill the
concave of the sky. Soon afterwards the Royal Yacht came
slowly up the line. Two Prussian frigates manned yards and
saluted. The English men-of-war did not salute again ; the
crews were supposed to be at work for the service of the day.
We were admirably placed ; we saw the Queen and her party
descend into a barge from the Royal Yacht, and then row
away to the Wellington. We were close to her as she shewed
herself in the stern-galleries, and we cheered to the top of
our voices. In about a quarter of an hour she returned to
her own yacht. Before long the signal to weigh was hoisted,
and then commenced the business of the day.
The ships of war in two lines each line commanded by
an admiral the Queen's Yacht heading them a little
stretched out to sea. We all followed. It was most intensely
exciting. I many times tried to count the vessels of all sizes
that were struggling onwards in our immediate neighbour-
hood, but all in vain. Nothing could be more charming than
the shifting scene of the white-sailed yachts of the various
clubs, grouped in picturesque masses, and tacking and turning
in all directions. Then there was a dense mass of steamers
floating nearer to the line of men-of-war. You might have
compared them to a manufacturing city with its canopy of
smoke. The beautiful Isle of Wight never looked more
beautiful, when we turned from the fleet to gaze upon it.
We had gone I know not how many miles, when the enemy
was signalled from the Queen's Yacht. The ships of war then
closed up, and formed a 'line abreast/ I knew it was all
mockery, but my heart beat as if it were to be a real fight.
172
260 THE NAVAL REVIEW.
1853. We looked most earnestly ahead, and before long we plainly
Li. 68. saw f our S ail o f the line a nd a frigate and some steamers,
under full sail, and trying to get away from us. As we
approached they changed tack ; the chase then shifted, while
the fleet was arranged in beautiful line of battle. We steamed
towards the enemy in our little boat, and passed close under
the stern of a three-decker (The Qtieen} under full sail.
Before long, the enemy, finding escape impossible, bore down
upon the Queen's fleet, and fired a grand broadside. The
battle then became general. Broadside after broadside was
poured out. We were (in our little steamer) between the
enemy and a part of the line of battle, so we were for about
a quarter of an hour in the midst of smoke and thunder. It
was glorious to see the great three-deckers, pouring out their
deluge of fire, and appearing to rouse the echoes of the sky.
It was all the grandeur and glory of war, without the misery.
At Chobham it was impossible not to see that the fight was
all mockery ; but here it was hard to believe that it was not
earnest fighting that death and destruction were not at
work, while the furious cannonade was filling the air with
dense clouds, through which the flash of the great bellowing
guns shone but dimly, and the sun looked of a dull crimson
colour. The enemy was in due order beaten. Their sails
were hanging idly, and their colours down. Loud cheers
followed the roaring of the guns. A signal flew from the
Wellington to go back to Spithead ; first in the order of
advance, and then in racing order ; each vessel being ordered
to move to the anchorage as best it could. In this way they
ascertained the speed of the several vessels, and I was glad to
find that the gigantic Wellington screwed away gloriously,
coming in second only to the Agamemnon. We had an excellent
steamer, and kept in the thick of it. On reaching Spithead
we found that the Queen's Yacht had still the Royal standard
floating at the mast-head. ' Bravo !' cried some one, 'the fun
is not over yet !' The ships of the line had dropped anchor,
and two large frigates had also anchored a little out of the
GEOLOGY IN NORTH WALES. 261
line, and on our side of the Queen's Yacht. The gunboats 1853.
were ordered out to attack them. In about half an hour they ^ Ett 68>
were ready. We were almost too near. My ears were nearly
split by the sharp cracks of the twelve-pound brass guns from
the boats, continually replied to by the bellowing of the great
guns (56-pounders) from the two frigates. At length the
loud cheers of their crews shewed that they had won the day;
but the crews of the gunboats replied with loud cheers, and
the officers had some trouble in preventing the men from
dashing on and boarding, such was the excitement. 'This is
the best thing of all!' cried out a fine lad who was on our
steamer, and in such ecstacies that I almost thought he would
have leapt overboard. So ended the business of the day.
The Royal Yacht stood for Osborne, and we all went to our
respective homes. I was in such a fever that I could hardly
close my eyes...."
Sedgwick had hoped to devote some weeks of the
summer and early autumn to a further study of the rocks of
North Wales, in connection with the facts and conclusions of
his last paper read tt^* the Geological Society. "My first
intention," he writes, " was to re-examine the grits, con-
glomerates, and shelly sandstones which range from Conway
to the neighbourhood of Corwen, and form the base of the
Denbigh flagstone.... After having effected this first purpose,
I hoped to follow the same grits and sandstones in their
range along the Berwyn chain; and, lastly, to follow them,
as they are laid down (I doubt not with great accuracy) in
the Government Map, until they finally thin out and
disappear.... The bad state of my health compelled me, very
reluctantly, to abandon the greater part of [this task].
" There remained, however, a second and shorter task, in
which Professor McCoy had promised to join me. We pro-
posed to examine in detail the section of Mathyrafal, near
Meifod, the sections of the Pentamerus limestone on the
flanks of the Longmynd, the sections of the Onny and of
262 BREACH WITH THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
1853. Caer Caradoc, and lastly, the sections of Builth, Llandovery,
JEt. 68. anc j Llandeilo. I thought that the facts exhibited in these
sections must have a direct bearing on the conclusions we had
drawn in the preceding year 1 ."
Even this restricted programme, however, was left in-
complete. Their time was limited to a single week, and
further curtailed by unusually bad weather. Sedgwick fell
ill, as already mentioned, and for several days was unable to
give any help to his fellow-labourer 2 . Notwithstanding these
drawbacks, a sufficient number of facts were collected to
fortify the conclusions previously arrived at, and a paper
was written On the May Hill Sandstone, and the Palceozoic
System of England, in which they were embodied, together
with a reiteration of the proper limits of Cambria and
Siluria. This paper led to a breach between the author and
the Geological Society which was never repaired. Sedgwick
had intended to read it at the first meeting of the Society
after the recess. This, however, he was unable to do, and
ultimately it was postponed until one of the concluding
meetings in the spring of 1854, when he was not present. It
was referred, and ordered by the Council to be printed,
" subject to the recommendation of the referee." Thereupon
the President (Mr W. T. Hamilton) ordered it to be returned
to Sedgwick "for the purpose of enabling him to see how far
the omissions recommended by the referee, and adopted by
the Council, would affect the meaning and argument of the
paper." Sedgwick was unwilling to accept the proposed
changes, which amounted to a resignation of his nomencla-
ture and classification ; and, regarding the recommendation
as tantamount to a refusal to print the paper, published it
in The Philosophical Magazine, for which he was severely
censured in the next speech of the President. Explanations
were subsequently made, but Sedgwick was not satisfied, and
we believe that he did not again attend any meeting of the
Geological Society.
1 Philosophical Magazine, Vol. viii. 1854, pp. 303, 304. 2 See above, p. 256.
DEATH OF SIR CHARLES NAPIER. 263
To Mrs Bunbury. 1853.
LONDON, August 31 st, 1853. ;Et. 68.
My dear Mrs Bunbury,
I arrived in London last night on my way from
North Wales to Cambridge. Some expressions in your last
letter to me made me fear that the great and good Sir Charles
Napier had not long to live ; and I learn from the papers
that the event, for which every true-hearted Englishman will
mourn, has already taken place 1 . God's will be done!
England has lost a glorious and beloved son. His name is a
precious inheritance, and I trust that men of like heart and
mind may hereafter rise up in our hour of need, whenever that
hour may come. And it will come, I fear, before long ; and
my old and dim eyes can see no one like him in future
prospect. There is a wretched, twaddling, unpatriotic spirit
abroad amongst us a want of capacity for comprehending
what is great and good. We have our high places rilled by
men who can tamper with conscience for party can look on
the roll of England's history as if it were a cotton-spinner's'
ledger and can talk of Christian peace and think they are
securing it while they are telling England to bend her neck
that any despot may put his foot upon it.
I beg your pardon. This is not the way I should write ;
for I wish to tell you that I mourn with you, on what, to you,
may be called a domestic loss 2 . I do mourn with you in my
heart, and I think it a happiness (now alas ! a melancholy
happiness) that I had the honour of knowing the hero who is
gone. May God long preserve the lives of the noble brothers
who are still left for England ! Say a kind word from me to
Lady Bunbury, and any of the family who know me.
I was only a week away. My health gave way in
consequence of the incessant rains of the past week. I was
driven back. I could not have remained long, as I had
1 General Sir Charles James Napier, G.C.B., died 29 August, 1853.
a Sir Henry Edward Bunbury, Bart., father-in-law to Sedgwick's correspon-
dent, married Sir C. J. Napier's sister.
264 BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT HULL.
1853. promised to attend the Hull Meeting [of the British Associ-
JEt. 68. a tion] on the 7th of next month.
Believe me, my dear Mrs Bunbury,
Your affectionate old friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
At the Hull meeting of the British Association Sedgwick
was President of the Geological Section. He also read a
paper On the Classification and Nomenclature of tJie older
Pateozoic Rocks of Britain. The paper, as printed in the
Report of the Association, is evidently very different from
what it was when delivered. It is by no means long, and yet
the author apologizes for " the very great and unusual length."
He described it as "out of comparison, the most important
communication he had ever made to the British Association ; "
and drew attention to its " conclusions derived from evidence
the unfolding of which had taken many years of field-labour."
It presents, in detailed tabular form, his latest views on clas-
sification ; and was probably intended as a justification of
himself, and an appeal from the Geological Society to the
wider public of the Association.
After a hasty visit to his friends in Yorkshire, Sedgwick
returned to Cambridge for the Fellowship Examination. It
happened that among those elected were two sizars. " I was
myself a sizar," he wrote, " and I rejoice that the sons of poor
men get on by their merit." But, on these occasions, he
always had a kindly thought for the unsuccessful, and he
added : " If happy to elect good young men, we are sorrowful
in rejecting two or three excellent persons 1 ." When
Sedgwick's habitual pursuits are taken into account, his
interest in these examinations must appear remarkable. His
letters shew that the work was often very trying to him, but
he did not go through it in a perfunctory fashion, as a
disagreeable duty imposed upon him by his position as a
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 10 October, 1853.
VISIT TO BISHOP BLOMFIELD. 265
Senior Fellow. He mastered the papers thoroughly, and 1853.
remembered with pleasure translations that had been dis- ^t. 68.
tinguished by brilliancy of style, or accuracy of rendering.
Sedgwick had always found the work of the Michaelmas
term fatiguing, even in his best days; and now that he was
approaching his seventieth year he admitted that he looked
forward to it with apprehension. This year a brief holiday,
in the shape of a visit to Bishop Blomfield, refreshed him
somewhat after the labour of the Fellowship Examination.
" The visit to the Bishop has greatly cheered me," he wrote ;
"we entered Cambridge in the same year, and have many
common subjects of interest ; and in his own house, after he
has gone through the hard work of the morning, his conver-
sation is not only very instructive but very amusing ; for
among his friends and family he can be as playful as a
child....! am sure I have not often seen a more happy-looking
fireside 1 ."
When the lectures began Sedgwick found that they did
fatigue him a good deal. He described his class as " the
largest and most attentive I ever had since I began to lecture
in 1819," and perhaps he exerted himself more than usual to
instruct them. Moreover, in November he was elected Pre-
sident of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, an office
which he continued to hold for the next two years. The next
letter shews that he was trying to practise a little self-denial.
To Mrs Philpott.
Wednesday Evening,
November 2nd, 1853.
My dear Mrs Philpott,
I could only send a verbal reply yesterday, as
I was on my way to my lecture-room, and behind time, when
your servant gave me the note ; but I told him that I could
not dine with you on the 9th, and I hope he gave my message
in a proper coil of respectful words. In fact I had before
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 27 October, 1853.
266 MYSTERIES OF NUMBER NINE.
1853. refused two invitations for that day. Indeed I must not go
BA.. 68. out to dinner during this Term while I am so very busy ; for
my lectures fatigue me, and in the. evenings I am unable to
hold up my head in any party. In mercy to my kind friends
I must keep away from their dinner-tables. This is a great
self-denial ; but we are born to trouble you know. How
comes it to pass that everybody is trying to give big dinners
on the pth ? Is the Qth a day of peculiar capacity ? I dare
say it is. And there are numberless mysteries in numbers.
So said old Pythagoras, and I believe him ; and of all
numbers give me number 9 as the symbol of prolific mystery !
It is beautifully symmetrical ; having a beginning, a middle,
and an end of equal size, and each made up of the mysterious
number 3. It is the number of the Muses ; and it is the
square of the number of the Graces and that is more than
can be said of any of the other numbers that ever were
counted. It is indeed a singular number, though plural in
its graceful properties. Again, it is the last and best of the
Arabic symbols ; for that which comes after it goes, you
know, for nothing. Bless this number 9 ! It would take a
month to tell of all its points. If you kick it over it will
stand upon a new pair of legs, and then become six, which
Dr Philpott will tell you is a perfect number. It has proper-
ties in common with a spaniel, a woman, and a walnut-tree,
if we are to trust the old proverb ; for the more you pound it
the more you get out of it. At this moment I am half asleep,
which, may be, helps me to see more than a waking man can
think about. So requesting you to turn over what I am
telling you, I remain, so far as I have any sense left,
Your affectionate friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
Before long, however, he began to suffer from a deter-
mination of blood to the head, which only yielded to copious
applications of leeches and other drastic remedies. He ought
to have abstained from all mental and bodily exertion, but
VISIT OF THE DUKE OF BRABANT. 267
rest was out of the question, for even before he was out of the 1853.
doctor's hands, Prince Albert brought the Duke of Brabant to rEt - 68 -
see the University. It became Sedgwick's duty to arrange
the programme of the visit, and, as the illustrious visitors
wished to attend an academical lecture, to resume his own
course to suit their convenience. The Prince had intimated
that he wished to hear the lecture " as it would have been
delivered had he not been present 1 ;" but Sedgwick ventured
to deviate somewhat from this suggestion. " I lectured them
for an hour," he says, " about dry bones, but all went off well,
and I ended with an address of congratulation to the Prince,
and a short address to the Duke, in which I alluded to his
father, and the sudden affliction which had filled all England
with sorrow, followed, however, by new prospects, a renewal
of domestic happiness, and a crown. And I added that if
at some future (and I trusted a remote) period, the crown
should circle his head, he might, like his royal father, have
the happiness of long wearing it during a time of peace and
glory, etc. etc. The young Duke thanked me again and
again for having spoken so kindly of his father.... At twelve
['on November 23rd] a lecture by Professor Willis, who
exhibited beautiful models of some complicated machinery.
At one the Anatomical Schools and Museum. At two lunch
at Trinity College. Everybody as happy as men can be in a
fog. After lunch Observatory.... Just as they were starting
[at the Railway Station] the young Duke came back, and
again on shaking hands said how much he was delighted
with what I had said of his father. 2 "
This excitement did Sedgwick no harm, and he finished
his course of lectures, though in what he called "a short and
shabby way." In fact, he was on the high road to complete
recovery, when he caught cold in the Senate- House, during
the examination of his class. These winter afflictions were
no novelty ; but on this occasion a common cold was
1 From Lieut. Col. Grey, 18 November, 1853.
2 To Mrs R. Sedgwick, 23 November, 1853.
268 DEATH OF DR MILL.
1853. succeeded by influenza, influenza by bronchitis, and the end
i. 68. O f February came before he could be called well. In the
middle of his first attack came the news of the death of
Dr Mill. "This afternoon," he wrote, "brought me news
which greatly afflicted me. My dear old friend Mill is dead,
after a short illness. In his own way he was the most
learned man I ever knew. He was sincere, upright, and
honest ; a man of principle ; but too much of an ultra
high-churchman for me to agree with on points of authority.
We never had one angry word together, and 'tis hard to lose
a friend of full forty years standing. He was just five years
my junior in academic standing, and more than five years
my junior in age 1 ."
To Sir J. F. W. HerscM.
CAMBRIDGE, February 27 tk, 1854.
My dear Herschel,
...I know that you have tender lungs, and that
when a cough settles in them you do not easily serve the fiend
with an ejectment, so you will pity me (and I also ask a tear
or two from Lady H. and her daughters), when I tell you that
I am not yet quite recovered from a vile cold I caught early in
December. For 29 days I never left my rooms ; and I spent
my days in drinking slops and sudorifics enough to dissolve
a block of granite. Mustard foot-baths and mustard chest
cataplasms were all in vain. So the doctor dabbed my
throat and chest with a liniment which gave me a kind of
horrible red mange, and made me unfit for a civilized piggery.
As soon as I was made up for a journey (on January 13),
they packed me off to my Norwich Residence, and I had the
doctor's orders to live on Sangrado physic, and never to read,
or write, or think about anything heavier than the froth of a
modern novel. I obeyed orders, because they exactly suited
my tastes and my cerebral condition, and my niece (not the
one you saw) nursed me, and sang Scottish songs to me, so
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 27 December, 1853.
WHEWELUS PLURALITY OF WORLDS. 269
that by the end of January they had almost 'whipped the 1854.
offending Adam out of me.' But, as ill luck would have it, I ^- 6 9-
had a fresh attack of bronchitis on the first of this month, and
was again 'in the straw/ and I only came out on Saturday,
when I found my way back to Cambridge, and now I am 'as
well as can be expected.'
I have not seen the Master since I came back ; but I hear
that he is well and vigorous. What wonderful health he has !
And indeed he ought to be strong, to destroy, a plurality of
worlds, as he is trying to do l . Have you seen the big ^pestle
and mortar by which he has pounded 500,000 worlds into
comet-tail-dust, and the big snuffers by which he has put
out the lights of all livers above and below the earth ? I was
much amused by it, but not convinced. But how can a man
be convinced who has a bad cold ? He is too full of phlegm
to be stirred by anything too dull of sense to have reason.
But I mean to read the book again, if I live long enough to
secrete a new brain, for my old one was all turned to mucus
long since. 'Tis a shame to write so much about myself; but
what else can I write about' living as I have done by myself
and for myself? My letters are only a kind of moral ex-
pectoration ; lung-thoughts and not brain-thoughts. I trust
your family are all flourishing, and that Lady Herschel and
your daughters will receive my kindest remembrances.
Though my head is empty, and my lungs sadly out of tune,
I believe I am still sound at heart, and that my good wishes
will do no one any mischief. I have for some years been
Vice Master, in virtue of which office I am Lord of the
Trinity spit. I wish you would bring down a good family
party, and see how I will make it do us a good turn or two.
Ever truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
1 The work alluded to, Of the Plurality of Worlds: an Essay, was published
anonymously towards the end of 1853. Early in 1854 Dr Whewell published, also
anonymously, a Dialogue on the Plurality of Worlds, being a Supplement to the
Essay on that subject. On this he evidently had some correspondence with
Sedgwick. Whewetfs Life, by Mrs Stair Douglas, p. 434.
270 ON A GIFT OF A BRONZE PLATE.
1854. To Miss Gerard. v
/Et. 69. CAMBRIDGE, March 8M, 1854.
"...And now for your present, which is before me. I
did not stand in need of it 'to keep you in mind ; ' for an old
man delights to live over again in past years, and your name,
and person, and cheerful voice, often rise up among my
happy remembrances of days spent among my dear friends
in Scotland. I wish I could see you, and them, more
frequently ; but your bronze plate may help me to journey
towards you more often in my thoughts. It is a sweet work
of art, in which respects it is both like you and unlike you.
It is ponderous, and you are not. It rings when you strike it;
and I dare say you would do the same, were I to try. It is
covered with brazen monsters, and I never thought you brazen
or monstrous ; but the very antipodes of such things. It will
not hold water, but it will hold cards, in both respects unlike
you ; for I have seen you drink water, and I never saw you
' hold cards.' Its wonderful mazes puzzle my eye surely,
very like you in this ; for, ever since I was fifteen (for
more than half a century) all young ladies have been to
me a most amazing puzzle. I could go on ' using simili-
tudes,' like good old John Bunyan of thrice blessed memory;
but time goes on, and I must stop. So, in plain words,
and without a figure, I send you my heart's thanks and
blessings...."
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
TRINITY COLLEGE, March 19^, 1854.
"...Since my return I have had two examinations
each of which (including the printed papers, the attendance
at the Senate House, and reading over the answers) took me
several days. I have also written a paper for the Annals of
Natural History*. Two Chief-Justices are here on the circuit
I dined with them on Friday (the only time I had dined out
1 See below, p. 285.
A LONG RETROSPECT. 271
since October) and the operation did me no good. But I do 1854.
now dine in Hall, and today I shall meet the Judges there, if Mt 6
all be well with me....
No wonder that my framework should be a little out of
order, for if I live till Wednesday I shall have entered on my
/oth year ! the Scripture limit of man's ordinary life, beyond
which his years are but labour and sorrow. Therefore, if you
drink my health on the 22nd, do also, dearest Isabella ; remem-
ber me in your prayers, for I sadly stand in need of them.
Oh ! that I had the placid, patient, hopeful temper my dear
old father had during the last years of his long life ! During
the dismal spring months I am full of bitterness, which seems
quite unchristian, and for which I hope God will, for Christ's
sake, forgive me. I fight against this melancholy bitter
spirit as well as I can, and some of it may be set down to
bodily disease...."
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
CAMBRIDGE, March 2$rd, 1854.
"...Your beautiful superb slippers came yesterday
my birthday. So one day is now gone out of my /oth year.
I once thought it impossible that I should ever be so old ;
not that I thought I was going to die, but because fifty or
sixty years in prospect, seemed a prospect of an eternity. And
the time does seem long, even in retrospect, when I trace it
back from stage to stage. But when I think of the warm
scenes of early life, the past time seems nothing. I seem to be
still present with those who are gone from this world to hear
their beloved voices to see their loving smiles and I can
fancy myself walking with them and talking with them
among the pleasant fields of my childhood, or boyhood, or
youthful manhood. Many of my beloved friends are gone
never to return ; but I am to follow them, and may that grace
of a redeeming God, who (as I hope and trust) received them
in heaven, at length, when it is His good will, receive me
also!..."
272 QUIET LIFE AT NORWICH.
1854. To Miss Fanny Hicks.
>Et. 69. TRINITY COLLEGE, April 28^, 1854.
"...You are a lass of good courage, and you know
how to make yourself useful in the hour of need ; and, dearest
Fan, it may be needful that you should, sometime or other, be
in the very chamber of death. Do, therefore, get over the
horror of seeing a dead body, and, the first time any good
Christian neighbour dies, do not avoid, but rather seek the
occasion of seeing the dead face. Oh ! the sight is cold, and
at first it does shock one ! But the sight is placid and peace-
ful, and there is the look of heaven in a calm dead face. I
would not have you acquire a love or craving for such sights
no such thing. But, as death may come any moment to
our fire-side, or that of our nearest neighbour, it is well not to
have a foolish, and, I would say, an unchristian terror of his
face...."
Sedgwick spent May and June at Norwich. His
Residence over he returned to Cambridge for the meeting
of the Archaeological Institute, and then spent a few weeks
quietly at Lowestoft.
To the same.
NORWICH, June igt/i, 1854.
My dear Fankin,
. . .You are gay people, we are quiet people ; but
Mary and her sister and baby find me some employment
when I am not otherwise engaged. I make use of your room
as my study, and there I write my letters and sermons. The
sermons (of which I have one each week) are always written
by snatches of time during the early morning hours. I am
pretty well, but not in good working condition ; for the least
unusual effort makes me stupid and gouty. So I do very
little on principle. I sometimes regret the charming rides I
had before the accident which spoilt my horse and my horse-
manship; but I take short turns with Mary, and longer walks
with Maggie, and so contrive to jog on, though I think more
exercise would serve my purpose better, and tend to drive
DEATH OF COLONEL MOORE. 273
the foul fiend away from my limbs. On the whole I think he 1854.
has treated me rather better than during past years ; but indeed ^- 6 9-
I had a miserable winter. The weather has by no means
been good. I had flattered myself with sweet moonlight
walks in the cloisters; but it was all flattery, for the moon has
hardly shown her face since I came here, and by her light I
have not had one turn in the cloisters, though Maggie and I
sometimes try our paces there while I am fumigating the
spiders above our heads with a cigar.... A Residence without
you and Isabella, does seem strange and out of nature.
I must return early next month (probably next Monday
week), for the Archaeological Institute meets this year at
Cambridge, commencing on the 4th of July, and Prince
Albert is to be down, as the Vice Chancellor tells me. Soon
afterwards I shall be off (D. V.) for South Wales.
My walks sometimes make me quite melancholy. Palace
shut. Deanery, shut. No Brother Canon here, etc, etc....
Does not this sound rather dismal? But, thank God, I have
a quiet, cheerful, loving fireside of my own. I may well say
fireside, for the weather here is still so cold that I cannot,
with my gouty limbs, do without a fire. Yet tomorrow is the
longest day.
I was dreadfully shocked at the news which came, I think,
last Friday or Saturday. My old friend Colonel Moore of the
Enniskillens burnt to death in the unfortunate transport *.
It was a miserable death. Do you remember him ? He was
clever and well-informed ; and he died doing a painful duty
nobly. The shock of the news made me quite ill for two
days, and brought back the gout.
There ! the bells are tolling for evening service, and I
must conclude. Baby has a great affection for me ; and
generally stretches out her little hands and makes all the
1 The transport Eurofa, with troops for the Crimea, was burnt about 200
miles from Plymouth, 31 May, 1854. There was a difficulty in launching the
boats, and Colonel Moore refused to leave the ship so long as any of the crew or
soldiers remained on board. Annual Register, 1854, Chronicle, pp. 91 93.
s. ii. 18
274 MRS OPI&S LIFE.
1854. signs she can for me to take her and give her a good dance,
Et. 69. w hich she does delight in. A bundle of love to every one,
and I send a royal salute of twenty kisses to you.
Ever affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Mrs Vatighan.
NORWICH, July i3//z, 1854.
6.30, a. m.
My dear Mrs Vaughan,
Here I am once more, 'to assist' at the wedding of
the Bishop's niece, who, at 1 1 a. m. this morning, is, we trust,
to be united to Mr Thurtell, formerly a Fellow of Caius
College, and now a Norfolk rector. I came, you know, on
a like occasion last April, when I tied the knot which no
fingers, but the bony fingers of death, can untie.... Whenever
I am seen in Norwich, all the lasses cry out with exstacy :
'There's Professor Sedgwick, and now we shall have a wed-
ding!' I am looked on as Dan Cupid's whipper-in, and
Hymen's torch-bearer. A fool may be a wit's whetstone
(better a whetstone than nothing), and an old bachelor, if he
do nothing else, may warn by his example, and teach men not
to do as he has done, but to listen to reason, and learn how
to love wisely before the soul is withered in a withered body.
Here Mrs Barnes came in to talk about packing up for
Lowestoft, to which we are all going, so soon as we get away
from the breakfast at the Palace, and have assisted at the
shoe-shower when the two turtle-doves turn their backs upon
us....
I have read Amelia Opie's Life 1 . I was astonished to find
that in early life she had been such a radical ; but I have
heard some strange things since the book came out. On one
occasion, at a contested election, she mounted a cart, and
addressed the mob of Norwich in a speech which her male
friends would not, at the time, have dared to make, or would
have made at the risk of a halter ! What think you of this ?
1 Memorials of the Life of Amelia Opie. By C. L. Brightwell. 8vo. Norwich,
1854.
MRS OPI&S LIFE. 275
I believe this story to be true. Still there lurked much 1854.
kindness in her woman's heart, or she would have been ^ Et - 6 9-
utterly spoilt first by bad training, and afterwards by the
flattery of the London seasons, during which she went from
party to party, decked in bright colours, singing sentimental
songs, and snuffing up the incense offered to her for her last
published novel. I always thought that Opie had turned out
an unkind husband. On the contrary it now appears most
clearly in my mind that he loved her passionately, and that
she never loved him at all. He was a man of genius, and
wished for quiet domestic life. She wished for the adulation
of society. Hence they were ill-matched, and she stole away
from him whenever she could. And after he was dead, she
forgot him altogether ; for had her heart yearned towards his
memory, her feelings surely would sometimes have found
vent in words ; but I never found a sentence in the volume
such as a wife ought to write about a dead husband. All
this I thought very strange and very unlovely. Was I not
right in thinking so ? Do say yes, in your next letter. Spite
of all these things there was a woman's heart in her bosom.'
She loved her father tenderly ; and that filial love it was,
perhaps, that saved her from an old age of querulous vanity
and selfishness. Be this as it may, by God's grace she was
saved from such an old age and great was the debt she
owed to Joseph Gurney. I have often laughed at her Quaker
cap ; but I now think it was a providential mercy that she
turned Quaker, and so snapped the cords by which she had
been tied to a life which never could have satisfied the
longings of her heart as she became older. All her latter
years were calm, cheerful, sincere (I verily believe), and truly
Christian. What a long yarn I have been spinning about
dear old Amelia !
LOWESTOFT, July 14.
Richard and Mary and Maggie and baby and nurse are
all enjoying themselves by the seaside. Baby, who did no-
thing at Norwich in good temper, now sleeps like a top ; and,
1 8 2
276 GEOLOGY IN SOUTH WALES.
1854. wonderful to tell, I last night slept soundly more than six
/Et. 69. hours, and rose refreshed! Positively I have not had such a
sensation before, for years. My bed is seldom a place of rest
for long continuance ; and I hardly remember the happy
days when I used to awake in cheerfulness with a joyous
feeling that I had slept enough, and that I was well when I
expanded myself into a spread eagle gave one majestic
yawn jumped up at one spring and then began to hum
some tune in mirthfulness. I had such enjoyments for many
years while I was young; and because they were so common,
I forgot I fear far too often to thank God for them. And
now that I have been so long shut out from such animal
happiness I have often grumbled and forgotten the bearing
of a faithful Christian. But you are not my confessor, so I
will change the subject
We had a good meeting of the Archaeological Institute
last week. The Prince came down one day. The weather
vile gave me the rheumatic gout, and an abominable tooth-
ache. Spite of these ills I rather enjoyed the meeting.... Kind
regards to Dr Vaughan.
Ever affectionately yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
Invigorated to some extent by the sea-breezes, Sedgwick
spent the rest of July and part of August at Cambridge,
working with Professor McCoy. Towards the end of August
they started for a short tour in South Wales. Their route
and their object are stated as follows by Sedgwick in the
letter prefixed to his paper read to the British Association
at Liverpool in September.
The task undertaken by Professor McCoy and myself in 1853 was
left incomplete ; but we have this autumn taken it up where it had
been abandoned, and completed our examination of various critical
sections at the junction of the Cambrian and Silurian rocks which we
had not been able to visit during the preceding year. Is there in
South Wales any Middle Silurian group in which the characteristic
Silurian and Cambrian types are so mixed and confounded as to be
inseparable ? In North Wales and Siluria we found no such group.
TRUE LIMITS OF SILURIA. 277
Wherever it had been erroneously laid down as one group we found 1854.
it separable into two distinct stages the upper of which contained ^ t . 69.
a characteristic Silurian group of fossils and the lower an equally
characteristic Cambrian group. But I was informed that near Builth,
in some of the eastern hills of Radnorshire, the Government Sur-
veyors had found the very mixture of older and newer types which we
had sought for in vain in our short excursions in 1852 and 1853. To
the places thus indicated, taking the Presteign sections on our way,
we first bent our steps, and the results of our examination will be
given in the early part of this communication. They are in perfect
agreement with what we had before seen in North Wales and Siluria.
There is, we believe, no Middle Silurian Group like that laid down
in the Government Survey ; there is no confusion of organic types ;
the May Hill group, though in a degenerate and disconnected form,
does exist, in the country here alluded to, as a distinct formation
separable from the so-called Lower Silurian rocks, and constituting a
physical and palseontological base to the true Silurian System ; and
lastly, that System, when reduced to its true base, is, we believe,
either in actual position, or in palaeontological succession, discordant
to the Cambrian rocks on which it rests.
If these conclusions be true, there is an end of any legitimate
dispute on nomenclature ; for we have no example in English geology
of two great formations which are, as a general rule, unconformable
in their position, yet at the same time belong to a common series, and
pass under a common name.
Having thus completed our observations on the groups connected
with the May Hill Sandstone, we next examined the sections through
the Llandeilo group in the valley of the Towy l .
A rapid tour such as this for they spent barely a
fortnight in Wales needs no detailed description. For once
the weather was fine, and Sedgwick and his friend spent their
days " toiling and broiling in a hot sun." As heretofore, life
in the open air suited him, and we hear nothing of his
ailments. " I do not stand hard work as I could do twenty
years since," he wrote, " but I am far better than I expected
to be. My skin is the colour of an old pack-saddle of the
last century." In one of his letters we get a charming
glimpse of Bishop Thirlwall.
"... After morning service at Carmarthen we found the
Bishop's carnage waiting for us, and in a few minutes we
were at the Palace door. The Bishop (Thirlwall) was an old
friend of mine ; and, for many years, a brother Fellow of
1 Philosophical Magazine, 1854, viii. 472.
278 VISIT TO BISHOP THIRLWALL.
1854. Trinity College. He preached in the afternoon in the chapel
Et. 69. O f the Palace. We greatly enjoyed the quiet shady walks in
his pleasure-grounds, and the beautiful prospects from the
banks of the river Towy. He is passionately fond of
animals; and every day visits his cows, horses, pigs, and
poultry, which he delights to feed ; and they all run after him
the moment they see him. His beautiful pleasure-grounds
used to be filled with peacocks, turkeys, and some rarer
birds ; and a great bend in the river (which is banked off) is
well stocked with swans and Muscovy ducks, and also some
rare species of water-fowl. But last year he met with a
grievous calamity. He covered his walks with some fine
white gravel from a neighbouring mine. It contained some
mineral poison which the birds swallowed, and the conse-
quence was that he lost nine out of his ten peacocks, and a
nearly like proportion of his other birds. At an enormous
cost he procured a thick covering of a different gravel ; but
the poisonous particles occasionally tread out, and, though
he is trying to rear a new stock of favourites, he has the
frequent mortification of finding one of them dead. The
water-fowl have suffered the least ; and it is amusing to see
the swans, ducks, geese &c, &c. all making towards the
Bishop the moment he appears in sight, for he always has
his pockets well stuffed with prog in which they delight 1 ...."
McCoy returned with Sedgwick to Cambridge, and then
took leave of him and the University before starting for
Australia, where he had accepted the post of Professor of the
Natural Sciences in the University of Melbourne. They
parted with mutual regret. It has been already shewn that
Sedgwick had formed a very high opinion of McCoy, both as
a man and a geologist ; and McCoy, being a warm-hearted
Irishman, was enthusiastically attached to Sedgwick. "If I
had stopped five minutes longer," he wrote after their last
interview, " I should have blubbered outright; and as soon as
I got out of your sight, I broke down altogether. The
1 To Miss F. Hicks, 9 September, 1854.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT LIVERPOOL. 279
greatness of my loss in losing the power of seeing and hearing 1854.
you, and having you for a friend, is now upon me very sorely, Mi - 6 9-
and I feel that every day will only increase my grief."
The meeting of the British Association at Liverpool was
memorable for a spirited discussion in the geological section,
which extended over the greater part of two days. Sedgwick's
paper On the May Hill Sandstone drew remarks from several
geologists, but, as Murchison could not then be present, the
subject was adjourned. On the Monday following Murchison
himself offered General observations on the Palceozoic Rocks of
Germany. When he sat down the opposing forces ranged
themselves in order of battle, and a war of words commenced
which must have lasted for several hours. Personal grievances
seem by common consent to have been excluded, and the
speakers, including Sedgwick himself, confined themselves to
the general question. Some of the ablest and most ex-
perienced geologists in England were present, and took part
in the debate ; but, as is so commonly the case on such
occasions, they left the question as far from settlement as
they found it 1 . In fact the debate is chiefly interesting as
shewing how widely divergent were the views of those who
thought themselves best qualified to speak with authority on
the true classification of the Palaeozoic rocks.
Two important distinctions had yet to be drawn before
the rocks of the upper part of Sedgwick's Cambrian, and the
lower part of the Silurian in the Lake District and North
Wales could be correlated with those of South Wales. In the
north the Coniston Flags had to be divided into a lower
series connected with the Coniston or Bala Limestone, and an
upper series connected with the Coniston Grit ; while in
Wales the Caradoc had to be defined, and some of the sand-
stones referred to it had to be included in the Bala Beds, and
some to be bracketed with the overlying Silurian. This task
Sedgwick had undertaken, and communicated the results
of his investigations to the Geological Society, 3 November,
1 The debate is reported in The Athenceum, 1854, pp. 1243, 1244.
280 CARADOC SANDSTONE OF MAY HILL.
1854. 1 852*. In this paper he drew largely upon his old notes,
t. 69. w hich he endeavoured to work in with newer information.
In his papers of this date we constantly find supplements to,
and corrections of, former papers, introduced into new work
with which they have no obvious and necessary connection.
In consequence we must always be careful to distinguish
Sedgwick's brilliant descriptions of what he saw from
Sedgwick's attempts to reconcile such observations with
what other people had stated. Sometimes, but not often,
he had forgotten his localities ; and so in this paper we find
a good deal of confusion in his description of the rocks
which occur near Stretford Bridge 2 , though Salter and
McCoy had both pointed out that there were grave palse-
ontological objections to his interpretation of the section.
This mistake he corrected in a later paper. But, after
allowing for all this, the great point of his paper was fully
established, viz. that the name Caradoc Sandstone, that
source of so much difficulty and confusion, had not been
applied to the same series of rocks in different parts of even
the same district. He shewed that along the junction of the
rocks which he called Cambrian and those which he recog-
nised as Silurian, that is, in the upper part of his Bala Beds,
and at the base of, but connected with, the overlying Wenlock,
there were great masses of sandstone ; and that all of these,
whether belonging to the upper or lower series, had been
confounded under the common name Caradoc Sandstone.
But he now pointed out that these were made up of two dis-
tinct sandstones : the lower " behaving with " the Bala Beds,
and the upper forming a basement series passing conformably
up into the Wenlock. The fossils of the two were quite
different, and in support of this he quoted determinations by
Salter, and gave lists drawn up by McCoy. The lower series,
to which he wished to confine the name Caradoc Sandstone,
1 See above, p. 231.
2 This is expressly referred to by Sedgwick in his letter to Murchison,
printed above, p 256.
IMPORTANCE OF SEDGWICK^S WORK. 281
was characterised by TrinucUus, Orthis flabellulum, and all 1854.
the organisms usually associated with them. The upper, to ^- 6 9
which he proposed to give the name May Hill Sandstone, was
distinguished by the presence of large Pentameri; Pentamerus
oblongus, Pentamerus (Stricklandinia) lens, and others. There
remained much work yet to be done along the border lines
where these two formations might be expected to come
together, but the point was established that the sandy rocks
of May Hill, Horderley &c., which had been included in the
Caradoc, must be cut off from the sandstones of Bala or
Caradoc age, and placed at the base of what Sedgwick
called Silurian, and Murchison Upper Silurian. The details
of this he worked at, as narrated above, in the two succeed-
ing years 1 , and published two more papers on the subject
in the Philosophical Magazine for October, November, and
December, 1854.
Sedgwick saw at once the important bearing of this work
upon the great question of the classification of the Cambrian
and Silurian rocks; and Murchison also fully recognised it,
for he had stated when describing the typical sections of
Llandovery Rocks : " These hills (Mwmffre and Noethgrug
near Llandovery) constitute the most interesting tract in
Caermarthenshire, since they exhibit a passage on the one
side into the Upper Silurian Rocks and on the other into
the Upper Cambrian." The coloured panorama (to face
p. 346) in the Silurian System indicates Noethgrug as
Cambrian, while the Plate of Fossils of the Caradoc Sand-
stone (PI. XIX. XX. XXI.) gives the characteristic fossils of
what he then called Caradoc Sandstone, but it will be seen
at a glance that most of these were fossils which never
occur in what Murchison or the Survey afterwards called
Caradoc.
After these discussions the Geological Survey re-examined
some of the border land of Cambrian and Silurian near
Llandovery, and eventually saw the necessity of recognising
1 Sedgwick visited Wales with McCoy in 1853 (p. 261) and again in 1854.
282 CARADOC SANDSTONE OF MAY HILL.
1854. the May Hill Series as something distinct from the Caradoc
- 6 9- Sandstone, but, instead of accepting Sedgwick's name, they
called the May Hill Sandstones Llandovery Rocks. At a
subsequent period they divided these Llandovery Rocks
into an upper and lower series, and bracketed the lower
with their Lower Silurian, and the upper with their Upper
Silurian, a classification now known to be erroneous.
The argument which Sedgwick then met was that the
Upper and Lower Silurian of Murchison were so linked
together by stratigraphical sequence and common fossils,
that whatever might be the history of their discovery and
publication they must be considered as forming part of one
system. But now he shewed that this was not the case ; for
the Caradoc, instead of being a transition series between the
two, was, on the contrary, made up of two entirely distinct
series differing in age and fossil contents, and the upper
division formed a clear and natural base for the Silurian as he
understood it, namely for all that part which was above the
Bala Beds. The Bala Beds he defined to be all the rocks
" which are above the Arenig porphyries and under the May
Hill Grits." In this separation of the May Hill Sandstone
from the Caradoc Sedgwick found an explanation of the sup-
posed palaeontological passage from Upper to Lower Silurian.
The mixture of fossils existed in the Caradoc as defined by
Murchison, but was due to the mistake of confounding
together the sandstones which occur at the base of the
Wenlock, and the lower sandstones which occur in the Bala
Beds, and to not keeping distinct the fossils from the upper
and lower divisions. It was obvious, in the next place, that
if the most important member of Murchison's Lower Silurian
was wrongly defined, the position assigned to the other might
perhaps be not wholly accurate. Sedgwick therefore re-ex-
amined the evidence on which Murchison had established his
Llandeilo series, and found that the rocks of the typical
section at Llandeilo were not placed by him in their true
relation to the great undulating masses to the north of them
IMPORTANCE OF SEDGWICK'S WORK. 283
which were stated by Murchison to be of Cambrian age. 1854.
This correction appears in the sections of the Geological &* 69.
Survey.
It was clear to all who understood the scientific point at
issue that at length the real source of error had been dis-
covered. Murchison's sections, on which he based the whole
of his Lower Silurian classification, were fundamentally wrong;
the so-called Caradoc was made up of different deposits of
distinct age and origin, and its fossils were a mixture from
various different horizons ; the other member of the Lower
Silurian, viz. the Llandeilo Flags, was only a local variety
of the lower Bala Beds, which Sedgwick had put in their
proper place in 1831 and 1832 in North Wales. Mur-
chison, in the typical area of Llandeilo, had turned these
beds wrong way up, having entirely mistaken their position.
But now the first great step towards clearing up the difficulty
had been taken. The Caradoc Sandstone had ceased to
exist as a middle Silurian passage-bed ; part of it was
relegated to the subordinate position of local sandstones in
the Bala series, and part was raised to the dignity of a clear,
well-defined, easily traced, and palaeontologically distinct
base to the Silurian.
Of course this important position was not given up by
Murchison and the Survey without some stout resistance.
But they were obliged to accept the correction, and only
covered their retreat by using the term, Llandovery Rocks,
instead of Sedgwick's name, May Hill Sandstone. These
facts explain some of the allusions in the following remarks
by McCoy, Salter, and Rogers. McCoy writes (May 3,
1854): "Salter and Aveline's paper is a most complete
admission of our (much contested) views on the Caradoc
Sandstone of Sir Roderick and the Survey;" and again
(June 9, 1854): "It is great fun to see the Survey marking
out the May Hill plane of separation, after all their stout
contradiction and opposition." Professor Rogers writes in
greater detail :
284 OPINION OF PROFESSOR ROGERS.
1854. "Your Cambro-Silurian controversy has interested me deeply.
Et. 69. Do not imagine I mean only a compliment when I assure you
how entirely convinced I have become, through your clear and
temperate vindication of your labours, of the justness of your
title to name and classify and call your own the great Cambrian
Series you have so long and patiently studied, and so skilfully
analysed. As long as the geologists of Europe employ a geographical
nomenclature, you surely, by the right of real priority in thought and
research, and by the claims of a sound philosophy in your inductions,
are entitled to erect your Cambrian Rocks into an independent
series equal in value to the Silurian, and to confer on them the
appropriate distinctive name you have given them.... James Hall has
confirmed by the conclusive evidence of Comparative Palaeontology
this notion of the identity of these lower rocks with your Cambrians,
in his Essay in Foster and Whitney's Report on Lake Superior.
Hall has not yet, I believe, admitted your Cambrian Series in
this country, for he entitles the Potsdam, Chazy, Trenton, and
Hudson River rocks, Lower Silurian Groups, but he presents
more distinctly than either he or others did before, the data
whereon we may establish the general equivalency of the Lower
American Palaeozoic Strata to your Cambrian Series. I am satisfied
that the evidence from fossils entirely sustains your remark in your
paper of February 25th, 1852, 'that the development of animal
types from the early dawn of a living world, appears to have been
carried on in North America in strict analogy with the development
now exhibited in the British Isles,' and your just inference that the
scheme of development in your Tabular View will be 'more
acceptable and intelligible to the American Geologists than any
other scheme of arrangement of the British rocks which has yet
been published 1 .' "
That brilliant geologist and palaeontologist Salter always
treated Sedgwick with the greatest respect and gratitude,
fully acknowledging what he had done in Wales. We see
something of this in a letter written from Llangadoc in
South Wales.
LLANGADOC, April \th, 1852.
Dear Professor,
I do not like to bore you with letters, else I should have
written sooner to thank you for your letter. It is too desponding
however. Slops and confinement do not well agree with a man
who has wielded a hammer over the hills so many years. But
the fine weather is coming, and the hawthorn buds are bursting,
and the redcap is trying his spring notes; the banks are "all
primrose," and before long you will jump into a barouche, and well
wrapped up to defend that ticklish throat of yours, will be far on the
1 From Henry B. Rogers, dated Boston, 25 February, 1853.
OPINION OF MR SALTER. 285
way to Ely before dinner time ; and if you cannot at threescore and 1854.
ten ride over the fens you have at least the pleasure of thinking how jEt. 69.
many would never have had that ride, or began a useful career in
geology and some other ologies, but for you.
There are some of us owe a great deal to you, and never think of
you without true regard. Here am I running along the South
Welsh boundary entrusted with the whole fossil work of three
kingdoms ! (for a while at least). And who took me into the field,
and taught me to know ft from a bull's foot, but yourself? I shall
spend a couple of months with Jukes directly and he could say the
same or a great deal more. And if you should postpone your quarto
work sine die a thing I devoutly hope you will not do you still
have put the old Geology of England on a firm basis, and taught
us to begin where you left off. Nay, even the last controversy,
which I was against at first, I begin to see was necessary. We
have your papers (Phil. Mag.) here, and are trying to read the rocks
along with them. It is rather odd that Aveline and I should
in two cases be following your steps along a difficult boundary.
This was an old plan for which we have only just got leave, and it
is a puzzler. You shall know the results when we know them
ourselves.
What do you think put me specially in mind of you to-night?
The Welsh folks in the kitchen have been doing their worst to sing
anthems ! and I have been growling bass along with them. Do you
remember giving out the Psalms for Peggy Jones to sing? (I hear
Peggy is where she was as bright as ever, not married yet). And do
you remember the Sunday we mistook for Saturday at Can Office,
and how the old Welsh lady softened when she found we were not
heathen stone-breakers ?
My dear Professor the trust you express in your letter cannot
be disappointed. If I may quote what is familiar to you " Thou,
O Lord, hast taught me from my youth : and hitherto have I declared
thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old " &c. I hope our
poor late friend my dear Master (Sowerby) may have lately leaned
on the same firm rock. I violated your confidence by reading your
letter to him, for I hoped it might do him good. He spoke very
kindly of you, and shook hands with me. I little thought I should
see him no more. Ever, dear Professor, yours,
J. W. SALTER.
In the midst of all this work Sedgwick took up his pen
on behalf of his friend Professor McCoy against certain
persons whose unjust reflections had been published in the
Memoirs of the Palaeontographical Society 1 ; and also replied
to some remarks implying a want of liberality in the adminis-
1 Annals and Magazine of Natural History, April and September, 1854. See
above, p. 270.
286 THE PLANET NEPTUNE.
[854. tration of the Woodwardian Museum in respect of allowing
t. 69. facilities for examination of specimens. Into these minor con-
troversies we need not enter further, except to remark that
Sedgwick's friends found in him no half-hearted champion.
McCoy, whose cause he had taken up so warmly, himself gives
a most interesting account of Sedgwick's telling, in the
Combination Room of Trinity College, the story of the
way in which Mr Adams had worked out by calculation
the position occupied in the heavens by the planet Neptune,
and his indignation that the credit of being the first to make
so remarkable a discovery had been refused to the young
Cambridge mathematician.
" When I first arrived at Cambridge," 1 says McCoy, " I
found Professor Sedgwick, then Vice-Master of Trinity, the
most popular and beloved man in the University, and his
reputation for eloquence, and for devotion both to the Uni-
versity and to his clerical duties, as fully recognised as his
scientific standing and labours.
" The first night was a memorable one. There was a large
party in the Combination Room at Trinity to see the new
year in ; and at it were not* only the most distinguished men
of Cambridge, but many strangers who had come down for
the occasion. Adams was present, and the question of the
independent discovery of the planet by him and Le Verrier,
and which of them should have the merit of priority, was
taken up in the most interesting manner by Professor
Sedgwick, who told the tale to the whole listening table,
with fuller knowledge of the facts than any one else had,
from his intimacy with the Astronomer Royal, as well as
with Adams.
" He related how Adams, as soon as he had taken his
B. A. degree, worked the matter fully out to his .own
perfect satisfaction, and brought to the Greenwich Observa-
tory a statement of the result obtained for the place of the
planet, with a request that the observers would direct their
1 In 1846. See above, p. 118.
CLAIMS OF MR ADAMS. 287
instruments to the indicated spot, expressing his conviction 1854.
that the new body would be found there. With thrilling words ^ 6 9-
Sedgwick touched off the neglect with which young men of
genius might have their labours slighted, and deplored the
loss to the University, to England, and to their friend, of the
glory of this most brilliant achievement, because nobody at
the Observatory knew or cared anything about Mr Adams,
nobody looked where he asked to have a scrutiny made,
and his paper was put in a pigeon-hole, neglected and
forgotten, until Le Verrier made a similar request, with the
result that immediate attention was paid to him 1 . [The
planet itself was at length observed, first at Berlin and then
elsewhere, and by universal acclaim the discovery was set
down to Le Verrier.] Then Adams and his old communi-
cation were remembered, and it was found that so long before
he had pointed more precisely (there were only a few minutes
I think between their places) to the proper spot on the
heavens for the search, and had worked out the whole of
the calculations with perfect accuracy, completeness, and
elegance. To Adams' great discomfort Sedgwick told how
his modesty prevented his troubling the Astronomer Royal or
any of the officials further in the matter, and how Prince
Albert and the Queen felt so strongly on the subject that
Adams was asked to accept knighthood at the Public Com-
mencement in 1847 in proof of their recognition of his
wonderful work and with regret that he would accept no
such recognition the story ended. A dead silence fell upon
the company. No one felt inclined to break the spell by
uttering a word, and Sedgwick, closing his eyes and leaning
back in meditative silence, enlisted the sorrowful sympathy
1 Several circumstances, accidental and other, combined to prevent the
discovery of Adams being brought before the public earlier. The required sheet
of the celestial map happened not to be in the Cambridge Observatory, and
though Professor Challis had detected the planet, he waited a fortnight to see
whether it moved, and in the meantime it was observed and recorded at Berlin.
Earnshaw wanted Adams to communicate his observations to the Cambridge
Philosophical Society, but unfortunately this good advice was not followed.
288 HOLIDA Y IN PARIS.
1854. of all. Suddenly he started up with fiery energy, and raising
JEt. 69. j^s arm W j t j 1 a fi erce gesture startled us all by exclaiming :
' Curse their narcotic souls? What was to have come after
this we never heard, as the burst of laughter with which this
beginning was received seemed to awaken him as from a
dream. He looked round to see what was the matter,
and, as he did so, the boyish good-natured beaming expres-
sion came back, with his favourite gesture of rubbing his
hand over his face and eyes, and a hearty laugh at himself
and thus my first experience of his powers of speech ended."
We will now return to the autumn of 1854. For some
time Sedgwick had felt the need of a holiday, " to drive
away the last remnant of gouty hypochondria 1 /' and brace
himself for his lectures and other duties. Various plans
were discussed and rejected, and finally it was decided
that he should take his two nieces to Paris. They had a
pleasant journey by the way of Boulogne and Amiens, where
they halted to see " the finest cathedral in the world ;" and
he was ''astonished and dazzled 2 " at the sight of Paris,
which he had not visited for twenty years. But the weather
was hot, he over-heated himself with sight-seeing, caught a
chill, and was confined to his room with bronchitis during
the greater part of the visit.
During the Michaelmas term Sedgwick resumed his
lectures, but with difficulty. " My lungs are tender," he
wrote, " my nerves are shaken, and I am forced to take the
greatest care of myself." His spirits, too, were much de-
pressed by the news from the Crimea, where he watched the
course of events with the deepest interest. "The news is in
one sense glorious, but alas ! dismal. 'Tis like a halo over
a grave. Since the siege began I have had dismal anticipa-
tions, for I am old enough to remember Napoleon's glowing
accounts, in his bulletins, of the Russian climate. And then
1 To Hugh Miller, 9 December, 1854.
2 To Miss Kate Malcolm, 7 December, 1856.
RECOLLECTIONS OF NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA. 289
came the 6th of November, 1812*, after which followed the 1854.
wreck and utter destruction of the finest army that ever took ^ h 6 9-
the field. May God save our army ! What frightful havoc
among the light cavalry ! What carnage and audacity for
no purpose ! I could not sleep last night for thinking of these
horrors. 1 '
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, December i$th, 1854.
"...The Astronomer- Royal and Mrs Airy are now at
the Lodge, and I drank tea with them this evening, after the
Commemoration feast. Fifty years are gone since I attended
the Commemoration when I was a freshman. At that time
England was armed to the teeth, and eight years afterwards
I had the good fortune, on the evening of the Commemoration
in 1812, to carry to the Combination Room the news of the
breaking-up of Bonaparte's army. I shall never forget the
excitement. Many of the persons present, for very joy, wept
and sobbed like children."
Shortly afterwards Sedgwick gave before The Athencenm
of Bury St Edmunds the lecture on the structure of the
extinct Sloths which he had already delivered at Ipswich and
Leeds. In the course of the following year he was persuaded
to print it for the benefit of a charity; and we are thus
enabled to form some idea of how he made such a subject
interesting to a popular audience. "The Professor began"
we read, "by a short allusion to the great change in the
political horizon since the autumn of 1812, when he last set
his foot in the room where they were then assembled. It was
on a festive occasion very different from the one which
brought them together now; but English hearts were then
deeply anxious (even in the midst of their festivity) about the
fate of the Russian Empire threatened as it was, and
1 Sedgwick probably refers to the first fall of snow, which is stated in some
of the accounts of the Russian campaign to have taken place at this date.
S. II, 19
290 LECTURE ON EXTINCT SLOTHS.
1854. almost overwhelmed, by the great invading hosts of the first
Mt. 69. Napoleon. Western Europe is now threatened by the Auto-
crat of Russia ; and England, in firm alliance with another
Napoleon, is once more doing battle in the cause of national
honour and European liberty. If he had anything to regret,"
he said, " it was that he had not the great privilege of
addressing them in a cause in which the hearts of all English
men and English women beat in unison of inviting the
members of The Athenceum to combine their efforts for the
relief of our heroic soldiers in the East. That luck had fallen
to another, at the previous meeting of The Athenceum; and he
must proceed without further preface to discuss the less
exciting subject of this evening's lecture."
After this exordium he sketched the divisions of the
Mammalia, according to Cuvier, and the characteristics of
the special group, the Edentata, to which both recent and
extinct Sloths belong. Then, after explaining the anatomy
and the habits of the existing Sloth of South America, he
showed how a study of the bones of the gigantic Mylodon
and Megatherium leads us to infer that their habits were
analogous to those of the small animals by which the family
is now represented. This part of the lecture is extraordinarily
graphic, even in its printed form ; and must have been far
more so when orally delivered. Sedgwick never read his
lectures, though he generally prepared copious notes, so as to
have an outline of the whole drawn clearly in his mind before
he began. Then he trusted to the inspiration of the moment
for the language and the details.
It has been frequently pointed out in the course of this
narrative that next to the discovery of scientific truth the
main object of Sedgwick's life was to point out to all who
listened to him or read his works the value of such discoveries
from a teleological point of view. The opportunity afforded
in this direction by a popular address was not to be over-
looked. In consequence the concluding pages of the lecture
deal with the evidence to be deduced from these fossils of a
TELEOLOGICAL VIEWS. 291
unity of plan in creation, and a First Cause. These reflec- 1854.
tions do not, as a general rule, differ materially from those we ^ 6 9-
have noticed on similar occasions ; but among them there is
one passage which deserves quotation, as illustrating Sedg-
wick's tone of mind towards any speculations which raised
secondary causes into undue prominence. This is specially
interesting when we remember that those very remains were
discovered by Darwin, and that " the vivid impression
produced by excavating them with his own hands formed one
of the chief starting-points of his speculations on the origin
of species 1 ."
'Are the small living sloths to be regarded as the natural
descendants of the ancient giants ? To answer this question in the
affirmative, is not to build our conclusions upon experience and
inductive evidence; but is, on the contrary, to build upon a rash
and unwarranted hypothesis, by a virtual repudiation of such evidence.
We have no example, in the living world, of the passage, or transmu-
tation, of one perfect species into another. There are many progressive
changes in the early stages of animal life ; but all such changes are
bound together by undeviating laws ; so as, in every case, to end in
a species identical with the parent species from which the animal
sprung. The constancy of organic laws is a truth of science as
certain as the constancy of the laws by which dead matter is held in
its present order. The art of man, and the effects of domestication,
have produced many modifications of animal form, but not so much
as one change of species ; and it has been found that when a species
that has been modified by domestication returns to its wild state,
it gradually returns also to its original wild type and character.
The animals entombed in the old catacombs of Egypt are not
specifically different from those which now live. Between the
extinct and living Sloths there is a wide organic interval. They
are of the same Order, but they are neither of the same Species,
nor the same Genus ; and there is no known law of nature by which
we can bridge over this wide interval. Sound philosophy holds no
dealings with hypothetical laws, which are neither proved nor
suggested by the facts of experience; and hence we reject the
fabulous genealogy which derives the parentage of the living forms
of nature from those extinct animal forms which are entombed in
the ancient strata of the earth.
Sedgwick spent the year 1855 much as he had spent
the year 1854 in trying to shake off a succession of colds,
1 The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, i. p. 276.
IQ 2
292 PARLIAMENTARY REFORM OF UNIVERSITY.
1855. accompanied at times by other and more distressing symptoms.
/Et. 70. The thoughts and occupations by which this tedious employ-
ment was diversified are related with sufficient detail in the
following letters, with the exception of one important matter,
which must be briefly noticed.
In April 1855, the Government determined to introduce
into Parliament a Bill for the reform of the University of
Cambridge. It was proposed to appoint a Parliamentary
Commission, to give effect to the recommendations contained
in the Report of the Royal Commissioners, published, as has
been already related, in August, 1852. Sedgwick was invited
to be one of these new Commissioners, and, after consultation
with Whewell, and possibly with others, accepted. The Bill
passed the House of Lords, and might possibly have passed
the House of Commons also, had not the promoters of it
discovered that they had misunderstood the state of public
opinion at Cambridge, where their proposals encountered
determined opposition. It was pointed out to them, in a
petition agreed to at a meeting of Members of the Senate
convened in the Arts School by the Proctors (7 May), that their
suggested constitution would "continue, with very slight modi-
fications, the government to which your petitioners are now
subject ; " in other words, that it would reserve to the Heads
of Colleges that despotic and irresponsible rule over the
University which men of all parties had made up their minds
to put an end to. Among the remonstrances which the
measure called forth, none created so great a sensation, or
produced such a lasting effect, as two letters to the Lord
Chancellor, signed by four of the late Commissioners,
Peacock, Herschel, Romilly, and Sedgwick, together with
their secretary Mr Bateson. These letters indicated, in
forcible language, the most obvious defects of the proposed
legislation, and suggested the points to which, in the opinion
of those responsible for the letters, special attention ought to
be directed in any measure of University reform. The Bill,
notwithstanding the introduction of amendments which re-
ACTION OF THE LATE COMMISSIONERS. 293
moved several of its most glaring defects, was abandoned, 1855.
and when a new measure was introduced in 1856 different ^ 7-
Commissioners were nominated.
It is not easy to estimate Sedgwick's share in this matter.
It is certain that he did not write the letters, of which Peacock
was probably the author ; but at the same time we may be
sure that he would not have signed them unless he had
cordially approved the policy they advocated. In support
of this view we will quote a few sentences from one of his
letters to Whewell, who supported the Bill, and vehemently
disapproved of the action of the late Commissioners 1 .
/
To the Master of Trinity College.
May 27^, 1855.
"...As to our opinions respecting the University Bill,
they differ so widely that it is absolutely impossible to bring
them into any near accordance. The attempt virtually to
perpetuate, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the
despotic constitution of Whitgift, was, in my mind, an absurdity
into which I should not have thought it possible that any
Cambridge graduate could have fallen. And to attempt this
in a Bill which had to pass a reformed parliament, and after
a more liberal constitution had been given to Oxford, did not,
in my mind, lessen the absurdity. Who prepared the
original draft of the Bill I have no means of knowing, but
assuredly he mistook the wishes of the Commissioners, while
he never condescended to consult them. And, if he looked
on the intended Bill as a pacific measure, which was to
remove enmities in the University, he must have been very
little acquainted with the temper of University men, and
with their reasonable hopes and expectations...."
In the latest edition of the Bill that we have seen (12
June) Sedgwick's name is replaced by that of Mr Walpole.
His reasons for withdrawal may be readily accounted for.
The letters he wrote to Colonel Grey when asked to be a
1 Whewell's Life, by Mrs Stair Douglas, pp. 493444.
294 SEDGWICK DECLINES TO BE A COMMISSIONER.
1855. Royal Commissioner in 1850 shew his reluctance to take up
Et. 70. a position antagonistic to those whom he had known longest
and respected most. The attitude of Whewell though Sedg-
wick, in writing to Peacock, treats his violence with good-
humoured indifference had probably impressed him more
deeply than he cared to admit ; and he thought it better to
escape at once from a position which would inevitably lead
to further annoyance.
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
CAMBRIDGE, January i8t/t, 1855.
(Candlelight, 7^ a.m.)
Dearest Fan,
Your kind and ' pressing ' letter came to . me
yesterday. But indeed I want no pressing, and it is of no use.
I delight to spend a few days at Scalby when I can do so.
I cannot, however, always do so when I like, for I am like an
old post-horse that has stiff joints, and not a leg to stand
upon. I have more work here than I can get through ; and
yet my friends are pulling at me on all sides. I did lecture
at Bury. They have urged me very much to give them a
lecture in London but I have refused ; and, only yesterday,
I had a most pressing letter from Somerset House, urging me
to attend their last night's meeting. Perhaps I should have
obeyed this last call, had the weather been milder. But it is
now, at length, very severe, and I dared not venture...! have,
however, still on my hands an old unperformed promise to the
Natural History Society of Kendal, of which I am the
President. They have built a new Museum and Lecture
Room, for which, by the way, they taxed my purse ; and I
have been urged by a half-a-dozen people (the Mayor of
Kendal among the rest) to go down to open the New Museum
with a public lecture. I have promised to do so, if I can keep
my weasand in open order; and I expect them to fix the time
some day during the first fortnight of February... So no more
at present from your long-winded, prosy, wheezy, old uncle,
A. SEUGWICK.
DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES. 295
To Miss Gerard. 1855.
CAMBRIDGE, January 2oth, 1855. yt. 70.
...Poor dear Edward Forbes ! His death was indeed
a shock 1 ! I sat, day by day, at his side in the meetings of the
Geological Section at Liverpool ; and it was my agreeable
task to propose a vote of thanks to him when the Sec-
tion broke up at the end of the week's session. He was well
and joyous then. We shook hands when we left the room,
and I little thought that I was never to see his face again.
The evening after we broke up I met his charming young
wife, who was then full of happiness and domestic joy, and she
thanked me, more than once, for the kind words I had spoken
about her husband. Professor James Forbes 2 has resumed his
lectures, you tell me. All good men of science will rejoice at
his restoration to 'vigorous health ; for he is a man of great
attainments, and of great inventive power in the application
of his knowledge. His retirement from the active duties of
his Professorship would be a national loss....
I have once or twice seen Mr Maurice, and I know some
of his dearest friends. I have read several of his books. His
volume on The Prophets and Kings, and his volume on
Sacrifice, were his latest works which I have read. All his
works have one great charm they have the savour of an
honest, sincere, and truth-loving mind. They all contain
original thoughts, and original matter, which is another charm.
But I cannot always go along with them without halting and
stumbling. Sometimes I differ from him on points I think I
understand ; but, more frequently, I have a positive difficulty
in understanding what he means. His thoughts run in a
train so different from mine. I think also that he is often at
fault on matters of practical wisdom ; and (independently of
1 Edward Forbes had been elected to the chair of Natural History in the
University of Edinburgh vacated by the death of Professor Jameson in April, 1854.
He died 18 November, 1854. At Liverpool he was President of the Geological
Section.
2 James David Forbes, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of
Edinburgh, 18311859. He died 31 December, 1868.
296 OPINIONS OF REV. F. D. MAURICE.
1855. Bible interpretation where the words seem to be against him)
Et. 70. w hy did he disturb the congregation by his doubts and
surmises on the very point which led to his removal from the
Professorship at King's College ? There was a want of
practical wisdom in this. And Sir James Stephen (our
Professor of Modern History) committed the same blunder the
year before 1 . If Mr Maurice could have proved that he was
right, and that others were wrong good and well ! Let truth
be told. But I defy him to prove, out of the Bible, that the
punishments of God in a future state are limited in time. I
dislike the discussion altogether, and I owe no thanks to
Mr Maurice for disturbing our faith by making Hell into an
universal Purgatory. I am forced to write plainly. Away with
mincing words, when we have things of moment in our minds. . . .
From Mrs Willoughby Moore I have not yet heard. I
wrote to her a month or two after the horrible, but glorious,
death of her husband. It was a case of martyrdom to a sense
of duty. Some one told me that the Queen had given her a
set of appartments in Hampton Court. There ! have I not
put two p's in apartments to magnify the Queen's gift ? But
I have outlived my memory my teeth are dropping out of
my head one of my eyes is too dim to help me to read the
other eye, to make up for it, makes double images my
memory is as bad as a Sebastopol ambulance, it carries
nothing in it and now I have forgotten how to spell. Never
mind all this, if you can but spell out my meaning ! The last
thing I heard of Mrs Moore was that she had offered to go
out as a nurse to Scutari. Whether this offer was accepted,
and where she now is, I cannot tell you. The offer was worthy
of the widow of Willoughby Moore ; and I know that she
was very deeply attached to her husband 2 ....
1 In The Epilogue, appended to the collection of his Essays in Ecclesiastical
Biography, 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1849, Sir J. Stephen had expressed his unwillingness
to believe the doctrine of the eternity of future punishment. He was appointed
Professor of Modern History shortly after this publication.
2 Mrs Moore did go to the East as a nurse, and died at Scutari in the course
of the year 1855.
HELP FOR SOLDIERS IN THE CRIMEA. 297
You are right in calling Miss Nightingale a 'noble creature,' 1855.
and I utterly detest and abhor the stupid bigotry which has ^t. 7.
tried to get up a cry against her, and the ministering angels
who went out with her ; and only second to Miss Nightingale
is Miss Stanley the eldest daughter of the late Bishop of
Norwich a little, thin, feeble-looking woman, but of most
heroical courage and self-devotion, who went out (some time
after Miss Nightingale) with forty-seven additional nurses...
Alas ! I have lost many friends since the war began. At
Norwich (ever since I was Canon of the Cathedral) there has
always been a regiment, or a part of a regiment, of cavalry,
and the regiments were changed almost every year, so that I
knew personally and intimately very many of the gallant
men who have fallen, by pestilence, or the sword. Isabella
learnt to ride in the barrack riding-school. She was an
excellent horse-woman ; and the officers of the light cavalry
constantly lent her one of their beautiful chargers, with which
she used to fly across the country in our morning rides and
then pull up till I joined her. Three fine, gallant young men
dined with me a day or two before their regiment left Norwich,
and all of them fell at the fatal charge two killed and the
third desperately wounded. But my nieces have not been
content with sentimental sorrow. They have worked hard
and to good purpose for our poor soldiers, and both of them
would have gone out with Miss Stanley had they been
permitted. They have spent all their pocket-money ; they
have begged lustily, and through the kind intervention of
merchants they bought large webs of coarse flannel at an
almost incredibly small cost. At Scalby Fanny procured the
gratuitous help of seventy-three poor women of the parish.
They refused all money wages, and worked for her almost
night and day till all their shirts and waistcoats were made
up and sent off. Isabella in like manner employed scores of
poor women to help her, and they have sent off hundreds of
large coarse and warm stockings, etc., besides flannel shirts.
Tempests purge the air; and war and pestilence (horrible evils
298 THE EMPRESS EUGENIE.
1855. in themselves) call forth healthy feelings, and nourish virtues
* 70. wn ich would die for want of exercise without them. To do
our best to extract good out of evil is a part, and an
important part, of Christian duty. I cannot think England
can decline while God vouchsafes to put so much true,
generous, self-denying good in the hearts of so many
English men and women. Ever your affectionate old friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Mrs Richard Sedgwick.
LONDON, April 21 st, 1855.
"...Oh! but you told me to describe the dress of
the Empress 1 . Her gown was white, and very full. It
looked so puffy that a blast of wind might have blown
gown and Empress across the Park. Her figure is good
and elegant. Her manners very charming, and there is
an apparent want of vigorous health which does not spoil
her beauty (for she has a very fair face), and makes her
interesting. She had beautiful flowers on her petticoats ;
but not over many, for her dress, though splendid, looked
simple. In front of her bosom she wore a gorgeous ornament
of diamonds I mean down on the dress and she had a
dazzling necklace of very large diamonds supporting a
diamond cross which rested on her snow-white bosom. Her
hair is light brown, and was very simply dressed, except that
she had a very splendid diamond star on the left side of
her head...."
To James Smith , Esq.
EUSTON SQUARE, September zist, 1855.
My dear Sir,
I arrived at this place, by a northern train, very
late last night, yet I am, according to custom, up before the
waiters are ready to prepare my breakfast.
Let me then employ a few spare minutes in paying one
1 Sedgwick had met the Emperor and Empress of the French at a Concert
given at Buckingham Palace on the previous evening.
VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK OF ST PAUL. 299
of my many debts a debt of thanks I owe to yourself for the 1855.
valuable work on St Paul's voyage and shipwreck 1 , and for ^ 7
the pleasure and profit I have had in reading it. I had heard
of it, but I had never read it before you gave me a copy of it.
I think you have made out your case, at every point and
turn, to perfect demonstration. I have not yet read all the
dissertations ; but so far as I have read them I quite agree
with them ; but they discuss points about some of which I
am a very poor judge. I wish to live and die with the hopes
of a Christian. If these hopes were away, what would the
remnant of my life be good for ? A stammering remnant
of a babbler's dream.
I do not think atheism can ever do much general mischief
though this is the form that the infidelity of this day is
putting on. It is rank atheism under the form of pantheism.
But a philosophical scepticism, and a disbelief of the super-
natural, and a disposition to resolve biblical history and the
gospels into a succession of myths indicating successive
conditions of the human inventive mind, is a very prevalent,
and I think a mischievous, form of infidelity.
Most young men who think for themselves have their
moments of doubt, and I have known many who seemed to
be seeking a resting-place in a calm philosophical deism ;
and on that shoal (or on something worse) they were almost
sure to strike if they were men of licentious life. If I was
ever drifting in that direction (and I hardly remember what
my early dreams were), I was arrested in it by Butler, who
proved to me that there was no refuge in deism that it was
encumbered with the same difficulties as revelation, and I
never, save for a moment, so far belied my nature, as to doubt
about the being of a provident God and Creator.
Still there were difficulties. Had we the Bible in its
purity ? Had it not been tampered with ? Was it not
therefore mythical in part ? Paley's Horcz Paulince was the
first work that on such questions set my heart at rest. He
1 The Voyage and Shipivrcck of St Paul. 8vo. London, 1848.
300 VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK OF ST PAUL.
1855. proved to demonstration that the Epistles of Paul, and the
Et. 70. Acts of Luke were real historical documents, and substantially
true that any mythical interpretation of them was quite
out of question. This is Sunday morning, and I have been
sending you a sermon ; and my coffee is now on the table .
Let me, then (for I have now refreshed the inner man),
come back to your book. I would put it side by side with the
Horce Paulince as a demonstrative proof, so far as it goes,
of the historical truth of the gospel narrative. St Luke and
St Paul were true men, and published what they believed
true. We cannot separate the historical part of their works
from the theological, or the natural from the supernatural.
They must stand or fall together ; and if there be difficulties
in revelation (as no doubt there are) there are ten thousand
times greater difficulties in the transcendental metaphysics
and mythicism of Strauss, and all the lesser fry of that school.
I detest them, because I think them false to history, and
untrue to the wants of human nature. And on such grounds
I would cast them to the dunghill, and leave them there to
rot. I do not know that you will go along with me ; but I
do know that I have been delighted with your Essay.
Give my kindest remembrances to your family, and believe
me very truly and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
The long-promised lecture at Kendal was delivered in the
new lecture-hall of the Literary and Scientific Society, on
Monday, 8 October. The subject was the geology of the
Lake District, with special reference to the influence of the
Gulf Stream, and the scattering of the Wastdale granite
boulders over northern England by glaciers. The subject
proper ended, Sedgwick reverted to the Crimean war, and the
dreams of " universal peace, so delightful to a philosopher,"
but, he added, "however much we long for peace, let us by no
means gain our wish by truckling, or by servile humiliation.
Still let the day of peace be prayed for." On the next day
LECTURES AT KEN DAL AND CAMBRIDGE. 301
he was entertained by the Society at a public breakfast in 1855.
the Assembly Rooms. An address was presented to him, in &* 1-
reply to which he spoke feelingly of his long connection with
Kendal, and gave many delightful recollections of bygone
days.
When the work of the Michaelmas term was just beginning,
Sedgwick was greatly distressed by the illness of his sister,
Margaret. She had been ill for some time, but, though she
was in her 74th year, it was thought that she might still recover.
On consulting the surgeon who was attending her, he learnt,
suddenly and unexpectedly, that the case was " utterly out of
the reach of help and out of hope." The shock was very
great, and brought on a return of some of his worst symptoms.
The next letter was written soon after he had received the
fatal news.
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
CAMBRIDGE, October 2$th, 1855.
My dear Kate,
Your very welcome and kind letter found me
yesterday in my College rooms. I was not in spirits to reply
to it immediately; nor am I now in spirits to reply at any
length, or to attempt a compliance with your request that I
would send you { my impressions of your father's character.'
God willing I will try to do so soon not elaborately, but
simply, and send you the result....
To-day I am to begin my lectures. But my health is
shaken, and I begin my work in sorrow, and in dread that I
may this year break down with fatigue as I did last year.
The last academic year (which begins, you remember, in
October) was to me a year of solitude and gloom. I had an
attack of bronchitis which lasted more than six months, and
during the long, severe winter I was a close prisoner in my
College den. When I recovered the full use of my lungs
(not before the middle of May) I suddenly ' got up my
condition/ as they say of horses ; but I was liable to attacks
302 BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT GLASGOW.
1855. of congestion and giddiness, which were relieved by copious
* 70- bleedings from the nose. I was ordered to abstain from
work of every kind to think of nothing hard to be idle on
principle. So, while at Norwich in May and June, I preached
old sermons, and spent much time in romping and playing
ball, &c. &c., with my nephew's children especially my little
merry god-daughter, who gave me her heart in return. In
August and September I had a charming tour in the High-
lands of Scotland with two cheerful nieces. During this tour
I almost shook off the attacks of giddiness ; but not perfectly,
and I still feel them occasionally, but in a mitigated form.
My joy was now and then clouded by sorrowful memorials of
the effects of time. All my former Edinburgh friends were
away, and most of them are dead.... We had glorious weather
we gathered happiness and health at every step. We
halted at Glasgow during the meeting of the British Associa-
tion and we emerged from the ' land of cakes' by the valley
of the Tweed. We dined at Abbotsford with Mrs Hope
Scott (Sir Walter's grand-daughter). Just a quarter of a
century before I dined in the same room with Sir Walter
Scott and a most happy family party of eight, including his
sons and daughters. Of that party I am now the only
remnant. A very delicate and beautiful daughter is at present
the only hope of the house of Scott of Abbotsford. Similar
memorials of the effect of time I had among the Cumberland
lakes, to which I conducted my nephew and his wife for a few
days. The works of God were as durable and as lovely as
ever, but most of my old and beloved friends were away. We
did not see Southey, but we saw his grave and monument.
We did not see Wordsworth, but we saw his grave, and the
grave of his son and daughter. 'Tis time to stop, and I have
been putting my paper in mourning by spilling the ink.
Just room to say love, best love, to your mamma and sister.
May God bless them and you.
Ever your affectionate old friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
SERMON BETWEEN STAFF A AND ION A. 303
To Sir J. F. W. HerscheL 1855-
CAMBRIDGE, December i^th, 1855.
My dear Herschel,
I sometimes send long letters to ladies to my
dear friend (and niece) Isabella Herschel among them. But
I now send you a letter of business, and it shall be short. Did
you receive the second Fasciculus of the Cambridge Palceozoic
Fossils ? Have you received the third ? You were down in
my list ; but my publisher has either forgotten himself, or has
done my work very tardily and imperfectly. You must have
a perfect copy of the work as a goodwill offering from one
who honours you in the best way he is able. And mind !
When you have from me the perfect work, you must put it in
the hands of a binder or rather, you must, if you please,
leave it for me in a parcel at the Geological Society or at my
publisher's. I will then get it bound in a dress after my own
fashion, and send it to you again with a new coat on its back.
For I do not wish to be dirty, and out at elbows, when you
do me the favour to admit me as a guest into your house. I
mean what I say ; and you must, Sir John, fall in with an old
man's whims
Tell my dear niece Isabella, that (along with her name-
sake) I saw the top of Ben Nevis trod on the top of Ben
Lomond visited Stafifa and lona, and during the voyage
preached a sermon from the top of a beer-barrel 1 that we
saw the finest Highland lakes that we ate oatmeal porridge
at Fort William that driven by a shower into a Highland hut
we had a long talk with a midwife, who explained many of
her difficult cases, to my great amusement, and to my lasses
great confusion that we saw Burns' house and monument
1 There is a report of this address in The Cambridge Chronicle for 15 September,
1855, extracted from The North British Daily Mail. Sedgwick addressed a party
of excursionists during the voyage from Staffa to lona on the geology of the
island they had just left. From this subject he passed, more sue, to the con-
nection between science and religion ; the present state of the Highlands as
contrasted with the strife and bloodshed of the Middle Ages; the influence for
good of the Duke of Argyll; the Crimean War, etc.
304 PUBLICATION OF WORK ON BRITISH
1855. that we dined at Abbotsford saw Melrose, but not by "pale
Et. 70. moonlight" (as I had done before) and that we did many
other things most worthy of notice, had I not promised to be
short, and were not my paper at an end. So a merry and
happy Christmas to you all, and my best love to all your ladies.
Ever, my dear Herschel, most truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
An incident occurred at the meeting of the British
Association at Glasgow, which is worth narrating. Mur-
chison made a communication to the Geological Section on
certain rocks in Sutherlandshire which he had recently
examined. In the discussion that ensued, Sedgwick rose
to speak, and began by taking off a heavy great-coat in
which he had been sitting. The audience began to titter,
whereupon Sedgwick exclaimed, in his happiest tone and
manner : " Oh! I am not going to fight him ! " At this there
was general applause and laughter and the discussion passed
off without unpleasantness, Sedgwick supporting Murchison
on the points at issue 1 .
The work on the British Palaeozoic Rocks and Fossils,
alluded to in the last letter, was now complete. It had
occupied Sedgwick between five and six years, and had been
published in instalments the first Fasciculus in 1851, the
second in 1852. In its completed form it is a goodly quarto,
containing 66 1 pages of descriptive letterpress, illustrated by
25 plates of new or imperfectly known species, and preceded
by an Introduction of 98 pages.
As originally planned, it was obviously intended to form
part of that work on the older rocks which Sedgwick had been
intending to write during the whole of his geological life.
When it was first begun he employed Mr Salter as his artist,
who speaks of his wish to become to him what d'Archiac had
been to Murchison. This scheme having been put an end to
by his appointment to the Geological Survey, McCoy took his
1 Geikie's Life of Murchison, ii. 206.
PALEOZOIC ROCKS AND FOSSILS. 305
place, and to him the descriptive part of the work is due. The 1855.
plates were drawn, under his direction, by Mr G. West ^ tm 7-
These were executed at Sedgwick's sole charge, the cost of
printing being defrayed by the Syndics of the University
Press. The descriptions, it must be remembered, are limited
to fossils in the Geological Museum of the University of
Cambridge.
When McCoy's work was ended, Sedgwick promised him
that he would "draw up a Synopsis of the British Palaeozoic
System, so far as it appeared to have been made out on good
physical evidence ; and put his work in such co-ordination
with my own, that each specimen might (with some very
limited exceptions) be referred to its right place in the British
Palaeozoic series, to be laid down by myself on the positive
evidence of sections 1 ." These words shew that Sedgwick then
intended to write an introduction which would have been an
outline of his long-promised work, and might have been filled
up subsequently when he had leisure to do so. But, unfor-
tunately, when the third Fasciculus was ready he was unfit for
sustained labour, and, as he sorrowfully admits, "instead of a
Synopsis based on numerous sections, derived chiefly from
the Cambrian, Silurian, and Cumbrian mountains, I at length
hasten to the press (constrained to this step by a duty I owe to
Professor McCoy) with little more, by way of introduction,
than a corrected and enlarged Tabular View resembling
that which was prefixed to the second Fascicuhis of the
Cambridge Palceozoic Fossils? 2 Would that he had confined
himself to that limited field ; or had supplemented it with
nothing more than a history of the Woodwardian Museum,
and a tribute to the energy and skill with which McCoy
had described some of its most important specimens. But
his mind was full of the Cambro-Silurian controversy, and
the greater part of the Introduction is occupied with an
account of his own work in Wales, and a vehement denun-
ciation of the part played by Murchison with reference to it
1 Introduction, p. v. 2 Ibid.
S. II. 2O
306 SOUTHERN CHAIN OF SCOTLAND.
1855. Moreover, as it was written in fragments, interrupted by long
Mt. 70. intervals of illness, or attention to other engagements, it is
deficient, as he himself admits, "in a true unity of plan. I
have to ask the reader's indulgence/' he says, "for some
clumsy verbal repetitions which ought to have been avoided ;
and in some of the more lengthened arguments I have so far
repeated myself, that I appear, while writing at Norwich, to
have partly forgotten what had been, some months before,
written at Cambridge 1 ." It is much to be regretted that
an unhappy combination of circumstances should have pre-
vented Sedgwick from expanding his large views on the
whole subject here referred to in a treatise of permanent
value, views which have now to be painfully extracted from
papers scattered through various journals.
His work between 1851 and 1855 is marked by more
definite plans, and greater vigour, than that which preceded
it. He had noticed the fact that the Cambrian, and still more
the Silurian, rocks of North and South Wales belonged to
different types, and that the rocks of the Lake District and
the south of Scotland agreed in general character with the
North Wales type. In the hope, therefore, that further light
might be thrown upon some of the difficulties of classification
he had met with on his old ground, he made several excursions
along the hills of southern Scotland. That area is only
now beginning to be understood, after much palaeontological
work by Professor Lapworth, and detailed mapping by the
Geological Survey. Sedgwick's letter about it to Hugh
Miller, which has been already quoted 2 , might have been
written a few years ago instead of in 1848.
Sedgwick made an expedition into Devon and Cornwall
in 1851, this time with Professor McCoy, to see how far
recent observations might induce him to modify the views he
had formerly arrived at respecting the grouping of the Culm
Measures, Devonian, and true Greywacke in that area 3 . His
1 Introduction, p. Ixxxviii. 2 See above, p. 147.
3 See above, p. 208.
ROCKS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 307
attention had been called to some points, especially through 1855.
the publication, by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful &* 70.
Knowledge, of a geological map of England in which certain
tracts along the South Coast were coloured Silurian by
Murchison. He combats this view in respect of all save the
rocks of Gorran, and, reverting to the old difficulties, gives an
account of how, in 1836, they had "sent a good series of the
fossils of the Petherwin and Barnstaple groups to London,"
and how " every species was called Silurian." This mistake
had inflicted on him the labour of a considerable part of
two summers, for he returned by himself to hammer it out 1 .
" In the hopes," he says, " of clearing away this difficulty,
and never for a single moment suspecting any great mistake
in the determination of the fossils of these groups, I traversed
many parts of Devon and some parts of Cornwall again and
again, seeking for faults where they were not to be found,
and for anticlinal and synclinal lines where nature had never
formed them; and at the end of the summer of 1838 I
returned with the conviction that the first section of Devon-
shire, made by Sir R. I. Murchison and myself conjointly, was
essentially right... On re-examining the fossils in 1838 it
turned out that all the species of the Barnstaple group had
been wrongly named ; and that so far from being Silurian,
the only doubt respecting them was, whether they might not
be called Carboniferous rather than Devonian. Thus the
physical and fossil evidence were brought into harmony 2 ."
This experience called from Sedgwick a further state-
ment of his views respecting the relation of palaeontology to
stratigraphy. " I may add," said he, " from this example,
that no good classification either of subdivisions or systems,
or of subordinate formations, ever can be attempted without
a previous determination of the physical groups. The study
of fossils, based on ascertained physical groups, may produce,
1 For Sedgwick's visit to Devon with Murchison in 1836 see Vol. I. p. 458.
He returned alone in 1837 (Ibid. p. 489); and in 1838 (Ibid. p. 513).
2 Journal of the Geological. Society, Vol. viii. 1852, p. 6.
2O 2
308 ROCKS OF DEVON AND CORNWALL.
1855. and often does produce, some modification of our lines of de-
/t. 70. marcation; but the evidence of sections must ever remain as the
primary basis of geology. When a system has been well made
out, and its groups of fossils determined, we may then make use
of comparative groups of fossils freely, and with very small
risk of mistake. But to begin with fossils, before the physical
groups are determined, and through them to establish the
nomenclature of a system, would be to invert the whole logic
of geology, and could produce nothing but confusion and
incongruity of language 1 ."
He then describes the structure of other parts of the
district, and records a number of new facts, palaeonto-
logical and stratigraphical, and concludes that, with the
exception of the beds south of Gorran Haven, which are
of Bala age, all the rocks of the district are Devonian. The
supposed Silurian fishes from the rocks between Fowey and
Looe turned out to be sponges, and the graptolites found at
Black Head south of St Austell were corals of the genus
Cladochonus*. Many further observations on the strati-
graphy and physiography of the country, though valuable,
are not of general interest.
In 1851 he published one of his explanatory papers 3 ,
which contains much valuable information on the south-
eastern margin of the Lake District the difficult ground
where fragments of Cambrian, Silurian, Old Red, Carboni-
ferous, and New Red are caught in the intersections of two
great systems of disturbance which he refers to under the
names Pennine and Craven Faults. He says that we want
some new technical term for lines of disturbance such as those
which have resulted in a downward movement on one side of
large masses of rock, but not a displacement along one plane
1 Journal of the Geological Society, ut supra, p. 6.
2 See Sedgwick's letter to the Duke of Argyle, printed above, p. 211.
3 On the lower Palaozoic Rocks at the base of the Carboniferous Chain between
Ravenstonedale and Ribblesdale (read 3 December, 1851): Journ. Geol. Soc.
(1852), viii. 3554.
PENNINE AND CRAVEN FAULTS. 309
of fracture as miners would understand by the word "fault." 1855.
He explains, by reference to the above " faults," how, when ^- 7
crossing such a band of broken bent rock, we must allow a
Fig. i A Fig. 2 B
great deal of the depression on one side to a fold in the
rocks, so that the beds a, b, c, may be dropped, not by a
simple fault, as in fig. I (A) but by a fold without faults
of any magnitude, as in fig. 2 (B).
He again calls attention to an important observation which
he had recorded in a previous paper, that the movements
along the Pennine and Craven lines of disturbance were not
of one age, and refers to some belonging to the Craven
system which could be proved to be older than others which
were connected with the Pennine system. In this his
observation of the difference of age was of more importance
than his reference to different systems.
He has some very suggestive remarks upon the manner of
occurrence of the protruded masses of older rock, such as the
Coniston Limestone series, seen in so many places along the
great lines of disturbance. He does not think that their
exposure where we see them is simply the result of great
faults, which have brought them up relatively to the newer
Carboniferous Rocks ; "for we have perfect proof, in number-
less sections, that all the older rocks were elevated, contorted,
and solidified before the existence of the Carboniferous Lime-
stone; and hence I should conclude, that there was an ancient
ridge of hills... striking nearly in the actual direction of the
Craven fault, and that the Carboniferous Limestone was after-
wards deposited partly over, and partly abutting against, this
ancient ridge ; hence that during a subsequent period of
elevation, this ancient ridge may not only have mechanically
3io PENNINE AND CRAVEN FAULTS.
1855. produced the fractures of the Craven fault, but also may have
Et. 70. d e fi ne( i its direction 1 ." After some further speculations on
the palaeo-physiography of the district, he describes it in
some detail, giving diagrammatic sections in illustration. He
noticed the curious Moughton whetstones with their bright-
coloured concentric rings of weathering. "We find on the
west side of Moughton Fell," he says, " a kind of whet-slate
or flagstone which is divided into rhombohedral solids by
two sets of cross-joints. Many of these regular solids have
undergone a partial decomposition shown on the planes of
fracture by beautiful coloured rings (exactly like those
occasionally seen in flint-pebbles) which, commencing irre-
gularly at the outer surfaces, gradually become more
symmetrical as they diminish in size, and approach the
centres of the several solids. The same kind of decomposi-
tion, marked by rings of colour, has affected some large
masses of the Skiddaw Slate, and produced coloured lines
which might easily be mistaken for the original marks of
bedding. And similarly deceptive lines of colour (derived
from a decomposition that has commenced from the joints
sometimes traversing masses of considerable size) may be
seen, though rarely, among the Ireleth Slates, and the
Silurian flagstones of Leintwardine 2 ." In the next place
he describes the curious blocks which are perched on the
Mountain Limestone crags at Norber Brow near Settle, and
scattered far and wide over the surrounding country. He
admits "the intervention of a glacial hypothesis," but the
enormous extension of land-ice he had not altogether
accepted. " A great current," says he, " might account for
the blocks in the lower country, but a great current without
the intervention of ice would, I think, very ill explain the
position of the blocks on the above-mentioned calcareous
ridge 3 ." His postscript is an unfortunate attempt at cor-
relation.
1 Journ. Geol. Soc. viii. 40. 2 Ibid. p. 52.
3 Ibid. p. 54.
CHAPTER V.
(18561862.)
DEATH OF MARGARET SEDGWICK. JENNY LIND AT NORWICH.
IMAGE AND HAWKINS COLLECTIONS. LUCAS BARRETT.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT CHELTENHAM. RECOLLECTIONS OF
SIR J. MALCOLM (1856). DR LIVINGSTONE AT CAMBRIDGE.
LAST LECTURE (1857). ECLIPSE OF THE SUN. NEW COL-
LEGIATE STATUTES. LAST LECTURE (1858). DEATH OF JOHN
SEDGWICK. BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT ABERDEEN. DARWIN'S
ORIGIN OF SPECIES (1859). LECTURE ON GEOLOGY OF
CAMBRIDGESHIRE. HONORARY DEGREE AT OXFORD (1860).
VISIT FROM MRS LIVINGSTONE. THE AMERICAN SEDGWICKS.
DEATH OF HENSLOW. BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT MANCHESTER.
LAST LECTURE. DEATH OF PRINCE ALBERT (1861). AMERICAN
WAR. VISIT TO THE QUEEN. BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT
CAMBRIDGE. RESIGNS VICE-MASTERSHIP (1862).
SEDG WICK'S Introduction to the Catalogue of the British
Palaeozoic Fossils, noticed at the end of the last chapter, was
his last important contribution to geological literature. He
had reached the mature age of seventy-one ; and though his
capacity for the enjoyment of society, of music, and of nature,
was undiminished, and he could take as keen an interest as
ever in what was going forward in the world and the
University, his bodily ailments grew more acute, and allowed
him shorter periods in which he could apply himself to
serious work. Gradually, therefore, he withdrew from active
life. Occasionally, under the influence of strong excitement,
312 DEATH OF MARGARET SEDGWICK.
1856. the old brilliancy would flash out, and he would seem for a
7 1 - while to cast off the load of years, and to be as vigorous as
he had been of old. But such intervals were rare, and were
nearly always succeeded by a severe attack of illness.
In the period on which we are now entering it will not
be necessary to narrate his life as minutely as heretofore ;
his own letters, with a few explanatory illustrations, will for
the most part supply a sufficient record of his thoughts and
occupations.
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
CAMBRIDGE, January 26?%, 1856.
My very dear friend,
I have been so bewildered from sickness and
sorrow that I do not know when I last heard from you.
Had I known your address I should probably have written
to you from Dent I returned from thence yesterday
afternoon ; so jaded and out of heart that I could do no
more than open and skim the twenty-one letters which
awaited my arrival. I will now begin with my reply to
you ; though I am too late for the post. I can, however,
finish it to-morrow, as I am going to write a grave letter
which will be no unfit employment for a short portion of
Sunday morning. May God in mercy restore your beloved
mother to health. I have this winter lost some of my
most cherished friends ; and to lose her would (I say it
honestly) be a great addition to my present domestic sorrow.
How could it be otherwise ? Her kindness to me was never
stinted. The happy, joyous, loving days I spent in her house
are amongst the most delightful of my remembrance. This
is plain heart's truth; and in my present temper I cannot
mock my dearest friend with cold words of mere courtesy. I
shall be very anxious to hear from you again.
And now for myself and my own doings. I caught a
severe cold on the 5th of December, and that was the last
day I dined in the hall of Trinity College. Before that
time my lectures had been rather too much for me, and no
DEATH OF MARGARET SEDGWICK. 313
wonder, for I now number three score years and ten. My 1856.
complaint took the type of bronchitis. I was ordered to ^ 7 1 -
confine myself to my chambers, and never to enter a room
which had not a good fire in it. I was not very ill, but I
was in almost perfect solitude. I could have endured all
this without murmuring, had not post after post brought me
news of my sister's declining health. The consciousness of
my utter inability to move made me (perhaps not unnaturally)
the more earnestly long to go to her. I feared that she
would die before I could pay her the last Christian offices of
a brother's love. Towards the end of December I was much
better, and by way of trying my lungs I went on the 3ist to
Norwich, hoping to spend New Year's Day with my nephew
and his wife and children, and if possible to go down to Dent
before the end of the week. But I caught a fresh cold ; and
could not start in safety before the I4th. I still hoped to see
my beloved sister ; for her life had been ebbing away very
gently... I halted for the night at Skipton, for my lungs began
to be very angry. Next day I went by the train to Hornby on
the Lune, whence I intended to post over the mountains to
my native valley.
Sunday morning. I have risen late more than three
hours after my usual time, which is a little before six. But I
was fatigued by yesterday's work, and my cold is still cross
and requires humouring. But I must return to my tale of
>rrow. At Hornby I found my brother James on the
)latform. We had come, unconsciously, in the same train.
From him I first learnt that my sister was dead. He had
icard from Dent the day before, and was on his way from
Scarborough to the funeral. We went together up the
beautiful valley of the Lune, and over the high wild pass
which leads to Dent, almost in silence. The country had no
charms for me, as my mind was filled with other images, and
shadows of former thoughts. I came up this pass in 1820 in
the hopes of seeing my dying mother, but I was too late to
look upon her living face. This was my first great domestic
314 DEATH OF MARGARET S EDO WICK.
1856. sorrow. Again, in 1823, I forced my way through this pass
t- 7i- on foot, after trying it in vain on horseback. Before I had
made my way through the great snowdrifts that crossed the
pass I met a countryman and a shepherd who told me that
my beloved sister, the companion of my childhood, was dead.
I hoped to have received her parting blessing, and to have
comforted her; but this happiness was denied me. In 1828
I crossed the same mountains to my father's funeral, but I
knew of the old man's death before I started. He was in his
93rd year happy, cheerful, thankful to his very latest breath.
My sister Margaret watched and supported for years the dear
old man with the tender care that becomes a Christian
daughter ; and her own character became exalted and
purified by the long task of love which Providence had given
her. After 28 years, during which the old parsonage has been
spared any great domestic sorrow, old Margaret is now gone ;
and I am never again to see her living face, and to embrace
her, and to hear the calm cheerful Christian welcome from
her lips! These were the thoughts that streamed through my
mind as we went through the high mountain-pass to the dear
valley of my childhood. Perhaps I am wrong in taxing you
in this way. But I am writing to you, my dear Kate, as if
you were one of my sisters ; and you will forgive me for doing
so. My friends were well at the parsonage, though looking
careworn, but they were all happy in thinking and talking
about the passages of Margaret's life since she left her own
cottage (about two months before), and came to live with
them for the comfort of their constant care. She had
tottered to the Sunday school so long as she had strength to
go thither ; and with deep sorrow, and after much persuasion,
she at length had abandoned this task. The school had been
founded by herself and her sister in 1814; and has flourished
ever since as a blessing to the poor. But by no persuasion
could she be at first induced not to go to church ; and, week
by week, as she returned (leaning between her sister-in-law
and niece) she said : ' I think this will be my last service in
DEATH OF MARGARET SEDGWICK. 315
the church in which my father used to teach me, and in 1856.
which I have so long been permitted to hold communion &* 7 1 -
with my Maker.' She looked on death as certainly at hand,
and she did not fear it, nay rather she rejoiced in the thought;
for her faith was as firm as a rock, and the promises of the
Gospel were to her (I verily believe) as substantial realities as
if she had, in beatific vision, seen heaven and her Saviour's
face within it Yet she was, meanwhile, the humblest of the
humble, and overflowing with affection. * I am ready to die,
when it is God's will to call me away,' she said two days
before her death ; * but I should like to live a little longer
because you are so sorry to part with me.' She had not
much imagination, and she never used any rapturous forms of
address to God. All about her was calm and sincere,
faithful and true ; and her devotions were tempered with
the deepest humility. She was a woman of very great
personal courage, I almost doubt whether she ever knew what
bodily fear was, in the common sense in which womanly fear
is understood. Yet in woman, as in man, courage is com-
patible with tender-heartedness. Margaret, from her calm
address, might, by a stranger, have been thought cold-
hearted. But give her anything to do, and let a case of
duty or of suffering be before her then was no hand more
ready, and no heart more warm. She was loved by all her
servants as if she had been their mother; yet her household
was managed in the most rigid (some might even think
penurious) economy. She grudged everything to herself,
only that she might give away to others who were the objects
of her love and Christian bounty. In this way, out of little
more than 200 a year, it is wonderful how much good she
was able to do in the parish, and among those who had any
claim on her bounty. A few days after her coming to the
parsonage, she said she would take her last solitary walk in
the village. Isabella wanted to support her. ' No,' she said,
' I must this day go by myself And away she tottered from
house to house to take leave of her dear old humble friends.
316 DEATH OF MARGARET SEDGWICK.
1856. She had doubled her usual Christmas gifts, and she did not
tt 7 1 - wish even Isabella to know it. Perhaps also she had parting
words to say that were best said to the solitary ears into
which they were gently poured. After several hours spent in
this way, she came back greatly exhausted, yet almost
elevated in spirits that she had been so well held up in this
sacred and trying task.
Christmas Day had always been a day of Christian
joy in the old parsonage ; and of late years also in my
sister's cottage, for after she became a widow she lived
with my brother in a neighbouring cottage, which they
had partly built. As she was on Christmas Day so much
reduced in strength it was arranged that all the members of
the two houses should assemble at the parsonage in the
evening and partake of the feast of love together. But on the
morning of Christmas Day, at her earnest wish, this plan was
changed. The two houses were to go to church as they had
always done, and a strong servant who had borne my old
father in her arms from his sitting-room to his bed, for many
months before his death, was still living in the parish and as
strong as ever. She had come down from her own house (she
is now the mother of a large family) to receive the sacrament,
and she undertook to bear dear old Margaret, like a child, to
the altar-rails when the sermon was about to end. All this
was done, to my sister's great joy ; and she did receive the
sacrament once again in the church of her baptism, and
among the people whom she had so long loved. After her
morning devotions, and reading in the Bible for about an hour,
she would join the conversation of the family with cheerfulness,
and even liveliness. Gradually, however, her strength so failed
that she took no interest in anything but what had reference
to the duties of a dying Christian. She became too weak to
read, though she was able to sit on the sofa and converse. A
few days before her death she asked them to read to her the
1 7th chapter of St John's Gospel. She said it contained just
what her soul desired. She never afterwards asked for any
DEATH OF MARGARET SEDGWICK. 317
other passage of the Bible. That chapter was read to her, at 1856.
her own wish, again and again. The day before her death ^- I
(the 1 2th) she said, while on the sofa, ' I now understand an
expression in the Bible that did seem strange to me ; it
tells me of a weakness so great that a grasshopper would be
a burden to the body. Such is my case now.' Not long
afterwards she asked for the ' commendatory prayer ' in The
Visitation of the Sick. It was read. She then was borne to
bed never to rise from it again by her own strength. Very
early on Sunday morning (2 a.m. on the I3th) Isabella per-
ceived a change in her aunt's breathing, and called her mother
up. Margaret was, even then, calm, sensible, humble, and
most thankful. At length, as life was at its last breath, they
heard their dying sister distinctly articulate these words: 'O
Father, receive my soul for Jesus' sake.' And then she fell
asleep as quietly as does a little child on its mother's breast.
On the 1 8th her four brothers, her sister-in-law and niece,
her two nephews, and the servants of the two houses, followed
her remains to the grave. We were all of us true mourners.
I came back on Friday afternoon to my old College rooms.
They do seem very solitary. My thoughts have been running
in one channel ; but I hope I am recovering my health. I did
intend to go to Hall to-day but I have not spirits for it ; and
my lungs are still irritable. This day week, my brother James
preached at Dent in the morning. I kept by the fireside to
save my voice for the afternoon, when I gave the congregation
a comment on the I7th chapter of St John's Gospel of
course telling them (before I ended) that I had fixed on that
chapter because my sister's soul had rested in it. It is
delightful to preach to country people, but in this instance
the task was not an easy one for me. There ! I must end.
I have quite emptied my mind of its thoughts. My best love
to Lady Malcolm and your sister.
Ever your affectionate friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
3i8 JENNY LIND IN THE MESSIAH.
1856. To Dean Peacock.
" 7I * CAMBRIDGE, January 26^, 1856.
"...I have no academic news. Canvassing is going on,
but I am not in health and spirits to join in it. Of course
I shall give my vote for Denman. I am happy that my
vote will go with my affections, for I know Denman and like
him. Walpole I never exchanged a word with...." 1
NORWICH, February jtk, 1856.
My dear Fan,
I am now off the sick list. I wished to see my
house and its inmates, especially as I am making some
necessary repairs, and Jenny Lind was coming. So, by way
of killing two or three birds with one stone, I came over on
Monday last, and on Tuesday I went to hear The Messiah. I
have heard The Messiah ten times better performed before
with one grand exception : viz. the part sung by the sweetest of
all singers. I never heard her before in sacred music. She
was simple, and devotional in her manner of treating the
sacred songs, and avoided all ornament. I never heard the
songs sung more plainly, and never so touchingly ; and in
those passages which called forth the powers of her voice, and
the expression of her feelings, she became absolutely sublime.
She leaves us on Friday to-morrow morning... We dine at
four, and at half-past seven, I hope to be on my way to St
Andrew's Hall along with dear Mary. To-morrow, early,
Jenny Lind Goldschmidt calls on me ; and I am to go with
her to the late Bishop's grave, and to show her his monu-
mental window. To avoid the public I am to conduct her
through the back door of my house, and through the cloisters,
for she wishes to go as privately as possible...
Friday Morning. We arrived just as the orchestra was in
the agony of tuning. The Hall did look splendid, and was
1 George Denman, M.A. of Trinity College, formerly Fellow, now Mr Justice
Denman; and Spencer Horatio Walpole, M.A. of the same College, contested
the seat for the University vacated by the death of Mr Goulburn. Mr Denman
after a contest of three days (February 7 9), withdrew.
AT BISHOP STANLEY'S GRAVE. 319
filled from the floor to the roof. The music admirable 1856.
throughout; but, as usual, the concertos were too long for ^-7'
uninstructed ears like mine. I always long to dock them a
bit. Sainton fiddled divinely, but he became too long ; and
I began to ask myself, what is the ear-tickling noise ? 'tis
nothing but a scrape, made by rubbing a horse's tail over the
twisted bowels of a sheep. Few of our pleasures will bear
analysing; but they are pleasures still, and a man is an ass
who does not enjoy them so far as they are under the guid-
ance of truth, and reason, and prudence, and all these other
very old-fashioned things which stuff paper. I did enjoy the
music ; only the wire-drawn concertos give a man time to think
impertinently. Jenny was above herself. She was like a lark,
and she was like an angel, and she was like nobody that ever
lived before her since the days of Tubal Cain. In my mind
and heart On mighty pens (Haydn's Creation} was the song of
the evening, but she was wonderful in Ah mie fidele of Bellini.
Then she sang John Anderson my Jo, plainly as possible ;
but oh ! how touchingly ! She ended with one of her wild,
Swedish, mountain-echo songs; and just as the echo died
away we left our seat close to the passage out and
walked home.
At 9.30 Jenny Lind Goldschmidt came in a fly with her
husband. I just introduced them to Mary and the young fry ;
and then off to the cloister-door. They were quite affected
by the grandeur of the cloister. I then took them to the
Bishop's tomb. They read the beautiful inscription again and
again. Then the window 1 was discussed. Then round the
Cathedral ; and, as we were coming into the cloister, Jenny
ran back and waited a minute to have a last look at the
tomb. Then again through my kitchen to the fly, and away.
Ever dearest Fan, your affectionate uncle,
A. SEDGWICK.
1 Bishop Stanley, says his Memoir (p. 106), "had expressed more than once
his wish that if any memorial were erected of him, it should be the restoration of
the great west window. " This wish was carried out after his death.
320 IMAGE AND HAWKINS COLLECTIONS.
1856. To Miss p Hicks
" 7I * CAMBRIDGE, February 2$tb, 1856.
Dearest Fanny,
...I sent you a Cambridge Paper on Saturday.
Show my letter to any Cambridge man who is flush of
money and loves geology. The smallest contributions will
be thankfully received, and will put the donor among the
recorded benefactors and dutiful sons of our Alma Mater.
What an easy way of reaping lasting honour !... By beat of
drum I have got more than ^"200, and now tell me, my
darling, how I am to get the other ,300 ! Do this and I will
doff my respirator, and kiss your shoe. No! I will do no such
dirty service. I will kiss your lips with a love-smack as loud
as a pistol.
A great big collection of stone reptiles came to my
Museum the day before yesterday. They did not crawl like
modern reptiles, but came on wheels, which by the way were
well greased by the Master of Trinity, who paid ;ioo for the
oiling and greasing. This was well done, was it not ? They
are worth ^500, and are jolly fellows to look at, and quiet in
their habits. As for the Image collection of the printed letter,
it is also safe in my keeping. I wish it were well paid for.
Excepting the Master of Trinity (who has come down with
;iio for reptiles and images) the Heads have done nothing.
My letters do not move them they have no bowels ! This
is delicate news for a young lady is it not ? But, you know, I
have often laughed at you for being over abundant in the use
of the word nice ; and Dean Swift told me, ' that a nice man
was a man of nasty ideas ; ' and perhaps the saw may be
said of woman. That is at any rate a nice point for you...
Ever your affectionate uncle,
A. SEDGWICK.
The additions to the Woodwardian Museum alluded to in
the last letter were of great importance. The reptiles or,
in the words of the Grace thanking the donor for them,
IMAGE COLLECTION. 321
" the very valuable and unique collection of Saurian Fossil 1856.
remains," were presented by Mr Thomas Hawkins 1 , and -**** 1
Dr Whewell gave 100 to provide cases for their display.
The Image collection had cost .250, but there were contingent
expenses for carriage, cabinets, etc. which Sedgwick at first
estimated at ;ioo more. The Woodwardian Fund and the
University Chest were alike unable to provide this sum;
and Sedgwick therefore issued a lithographed letter (dated
10 January, 1856) in which he asks for the help of "the
members of the Senate and the graduates who are interested
in the scientific honour of Cambridge, in this (probably my
last) work undertaken in the service of the University."
When the collection came, however, he found that its proper
exhibition would entail a much more extensive rearrange-
ment of the Museum than had at first been contemplated.
It would be necessary to provide cabinets for the collection
of recent shells, as well as for other recent forms, and to find
some place in which they could be displayed other than the
Woodwardian Museum, which even then was thought to be
overcrowded. These changes could not be carried into
effect for less than $oo. A second appeal therefore to the
liberality of the Senate became necessary ; and Sedgwick
wrote a letter to the Editor of The Cambridge Chronicle
(20 February) in which the original circular is reprinted, some
further particulars respecting the Image collection are given,
and an appeal is made for the larger sum.
Mr Image 2 took his first degree in 1795; and during the long
period in which he has been rector of Whepstead near Bury St
Edmunds, he has been an indefatigable collector of fossils and
of some other objects of Natural Science. His Museum was not
1 Mr Hawkins published (among other works) : Memoirs of Ichthyosauri and
Plesiosauri, extinct monsters of the ancient earth ; with twenty-eight plates, copied
from specimens in the author's collection of fossil organic remains. Fol. Lond.
1834: and, 7 he Book of the Great Sea Dragons [etc.] with thirty plates copied
from skeletons in the author's collection of fossil organic remains. Fol. Lond.
r8 4 o.
- Thomas Image, of Corpus Christi College, B.A. 1795.
S. II. 21
322 MR LUCAS BARRETT.
6- stocked without very great personal cost. For many years he
71. employed numerous collectors in the various quarries near Cambridge,
Newmarket, and Bury St Edmunds, and among nearly all the
cretaceous deposits of his neighbourhood; and collectors were
employed by him, in like manner, among the extensive tertiary
deposits near the coasts of Suffolk and Norfolk.
In this way the Museum at Whepstead gradually became almost
unrivalled as an illustration of the geology of the whole country
which stretches from Cambridge to the eastern coasts of the
neighbouring counties. It also contained a well-selected and valu-
able series of fossils from the older Secondary and Palaeozoic
formations of England.
A mere list of species, however complete, would convey a
very inadequate conception of the value of the series. For Mr
Image had, by long habit, acquired consummate skill in separating
delicate organic remains from the rude materials in which they
are often imbedded. His collection not only represents, therefore,
what was brought together at a cost very far above the sum for
which it is now offered to the University; but it also represents
what is more precious the results of a scientific and happy labour
bestowed upon this pursuit during the many leisure hours of a
long life.
Sedgwick was extraordinarily successful in his efforts
to raise money. Before the end of April the subscriptions
amounted to nearly 725, including 50 from the Prince
Consort, and he could announce that the list was closed.
By the help of this fund he was enabled not merely to pay
for the specimens, but to fit up a room to the south of the
old gateway of King's College, into which all the collections
illustrative of recent zoology were gradually transferred.
At this time Sedgwick's assistant in the Woodwardian
Museum was Mr Lucas Barrett, a young naturalist who had
come to him, almost without credentials, soon after McCoy's
departure for Australia. At that time, says Sedgwick, " he
had the look of a sprightly, intelligent boy ; and I was so
captivated by his knowledge, skill, and youthful zeal, that
without hesitation and with much joy, I secured his services,
not as an academic officer (for no office was vacant), but as my
friend, assistant, and fellow-workman in the Museum. Right
manfully, and with much skill, he went on with the arrange-
ment of our cabinets ; refusing no labour, but delighting in
MR LUCAS BARRETT. 323
it. I had an almost paternal regard for Mr Barrett, and he 1856.
gained the entire good-will and confidence of every man who ^t- 7 1
knew him personally during the years he resided in Cam-
bridge 1 ." It was through Barrett's exertions that the re-
arrangement of the Woodwardian Museum, consequent on
the arrival of such a number of new specimens, was carried
out ; and we well remember his affection for Sedgwick, and
the heartiness with which he worked for him. But it was not
to be expected that a young man of such promise, dependent
upon his own exertions, would stay long in Cambridge. In
March 1860 he was placed at the head of the Geological
Survey of the West Indies. He entered upon his new duties
with characteristic energy, and was making satisfactory pro-
gress with his work, when, in December, 1862, when he had just
completed his twenty-fifth year, he was drowned while trying
to examine a coral-reef by help of a diving-apparatus " to
the inexpressible grief of those who knew him best, and
to the deep sorrow of every one who had seen his bright
face, or had heard of the heart, and hope, and skill, with
which he was carrying on the survey of which he was the
head 2 ."
By way of contrast with Sedgwick's serious work, or his
grave reflections on domestic sorrows, we cannot resist
quoting the following passage. His friendship with the
family of the bride has been often alluded to. " Yesterday,"
he writes to his niece (27 March), "I was at Miss Hopkins'
wedding, and all went off quite charmingly. I had, as usual,
to make a speech at the breakfast. In the evening they had
a dinner and a dance. I dined with them ; but about 9.30,
when they began to dance, I came away. I ought to have
told you that I threw the first shoe when the bride and
bridegroom started; and I hit the driver over the head,
1 Letter to the Editor of The Cambridge Chronicle, dated 19 January, 1863.
It was written soon after he had received the news of Barrett's death.
2 Ibid. The value of Barrett's work is specially recognized in the Report of
the Woodwardian Inspectors for 1857.
212
324 DISCUSSION WITH MURCHISON.
856. which was said to be good luck at least a good sign of
t.7i. it."
Sedgwick spent May and June in Residence at Norwich,
leading the life that pleased him best a quiet routine of
duties, enlivened by the society of relations whom he loved.
Their children especially the eldest had now taken posses-
sion of him. " Every morning," we are told, "the child comes
with her merry round face, and asks me to wheel her to the
Dean's garden that we may feed his chickens, and I do not
easily find in my heart to refuse her. I love children, and I
love young people. There is a charm about them which is
cheering to a ricketty old fellow like myself 1 ." The Resi-
dence ended, he went with the whole party to Lowestoft,
where he presided, with much interest, over their gambols on
the beach, for which he provided spades, wheelbarrows, and
other implements.
These diversions were interrupted by the meeting of the
British Association at Cheltenham, where a paper by Professor
Rogers (of Boston U. S.) On the correlation of the North
American and British Palceozoic Strata led to a warm discus-
sion between Murchison and Sedgwick 2 . The latter tells Sir
Charles Lyell : " Murchison's nomenclature was geographically
absurd and wrong ; and it was geologically wrong because
based on false sections. It was not merely an incongruous,
but it was a false, nomenclature. It was his policy never to
acknowledge a mistake, and on the one matter of fact
whether he had made a great mistake, or had adopted it
from me, he never spoke out till I wrung an answer from
him at the last Cheltenham meeting of the British Association.
He then, at length, but far too late to save his credit as a
fair-dealing man, did acknowledge that the blunder, the
actual inversion of the order of super-position from Denbigh-
shire to Caermarthenshire, was his own, and not in any way
borrowed from me 3 ."
1 To Miss Grace Milne Holme, 23 June, 1856.
2 The Athenaeum, 1856. p. 1060. 3 To Sir C. Lyell, -28 April, 1857,
i
DEA TH OF JON A THAN O TLE Y. 325
In September Sedgwick spent a few weeks in Lake Land, 1856.
but he came in for a spell of bad weather. " I had a ^t- 7 r -
miserable bout of geology in the Lake Country/' he writes,
"nothing but rain and disappointment, and alas! also solitude,
for nearly all my old Cumbrian friends are dead. Oh ! the
happy days I have spent in that lovely country ! Wordsworth,
Southey, Coleridge, Professor Wilson, and other kindred
spirits, now all gone. One old man (Jonathan Otley) with
whom I had often traversed the mountains in bygone years
was still living at Keswick. But what a ruin ! he was para-
lytic, and inarticulate, and bed-ridden. And no wonder, for
he was more than ninety. But the old honest rough-faced
hills did look cheeringly, whenever (and that was very seldom)
they condescended to take off their ugly damp night-caps."
Otley's biographer gives a touching account of this
interview 1 . The old geologist was helpless and speech-
less from paralysis, but quite sensible, and knew Sedgwick,
who stood by his bedside, silent and deeply moved. For a
while he held the sick man's hand, and then, bursting into
tears, cried out, as he knelt down, "Jonathan, I'll pray
with you."
To Miss Fanny Hicks.
CAMBRIDGE, November iqth, 1856.
"...I began my lectures the last week in October, and I
hope to lecture four days a week till Friday the I2th of
December. I have generally an hour's preparation for each
lecture in mounting sections and wonderful pictures, etc. etc.,
an hour for the lecture, and nearly a third hour in talk and
explanation to the lads. The work fatigues me, but I like it,
and, so far, I have stood it well, considering that I am now
giving my 38th course, and that I am fast wearing out my
72nd year. But the University have put me on the new
1 Jonathan Otley, the Geologist and Guide. By J. Clifton Ward. Transactions
of the Cumberland Association for the Advancement of Literature and Science,
Part n. i876-~77, p. 168. Otley died 5 December, 1856.
326 FIELD LECTURE.
1856. Council, which meets three times a week, and employs three
t- 7 1 - full hours in each incubation. I say incubation (though
I generally hate long words), because we all sit as close as
if we were hatching chickens, and I do hope we shall not
hatch any mischief, but there is danger of it. This work is by
no means after my liking. I have also, this term, to attend
all the congregations in the Senate House a duty I by no
means like. I avoid all dinner-parties ; but I have generally
a tea and coffee party at my own rooms after Sunday evening
chapel.
I made however one exception to my rule. Last Monday
was the anniversary of the Cambridge Philosophical Society,
of which I was one of the founders, and I attended the dinner
which is given to celebrate the anniversary. Let me try to
describe that day's work, though it is not a fair sample
of my daily life. Rose as usual. Assisted the College
Librarian in putting my books in order in two new book-
cases &c. &c. Swallowed a cup of tea, and some brown
bread, at 9.30. Off to my museum with sundry sections, and
illustrations for a double lecture (for it was my field-day).
Lectured to my usual class at ii.o. Broke off at 11.40, and
then (having all ready) started in a fly to the clay-pits at
Barnwell, where my young friends (some on foot and a
few on horseback) soon joined me. A short lecture from
the top of a big heap of (so-called) coprolites. Then a fly
to Cherry Hinton, and another lecture in the chalk-pits. A
drive to the top of the giant Gog-Magog, and some wonder-
ful discoveries. Lastly, a drive home after a red sunset.
Dog-tired, but mended by a basin of broth and a foot-bath.
Dressed, and then laid down for an hour, and slumbered,
while dreaming of monsters, and hydras, and chimaeras dire.
Rose at 6.30 p.m., and went to mine host of The Red Lion to
join the dinner-party of philosophers. Took with me a young
friend 1 who spent last summer in Baffin's Bay, in a boat
which was rowed (I cannot well say manned) by eight
1 Sedgwick's assistant, Mr Lucas Barrett.
RECOLLECTIONS OF SIR JOHN MALCOLM. 327
Esquimaux lasses. Their pictures excited a warm interest, 1856.
and made us wonder how my friend could ever tear himself ^- 7
away from such arctic Graces. After dinner many speeches.
I made the longest, I don't say the best, for that would be
boasting, and might be a fib you know. But I made them
laugh, and that is good for the liver, and therefore helps
digestion. Came back at 1 1 p.m. and to bed, after a very
long and very hard day's work. So you see your old uncle
has still some life left in him. While his heart beats he will
love you."
The following recollections of Sir John Malcolm were
written, at his daughter's request, in the hope that they might
be of use to his biographer 1 :
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
CAMBRIDGE, November \st, 1856.
"...I first saw your father> at least I first conversed with
him, at Julius Hare's rooms. He had come on a short visit
to Cambridge with William Schlegel, who that evening was
natural, and unaffected being carried out of himself by Sir
John's joyous and robust humour, his instructive oriental
anecdotes, his frank, open-hearted, outpourings of himself.
I look back on that evening (and we sat to a very late hour)
with a delight and admiration which will last so long as I
have heart and memory. That your father was a good
linguist, an excellent diplomatist, a man of great administra-
tive skill among the oriental nations whom he was called upon
to govern or to influence, that he was not only a good soldier
but a humane soldier doing more than once by persuasion
and personal influence what he could perhaps more easily
have done by the sword these are facts of history
which must be well-known to his biographer. But in
domestic life and manners your dear father shone very
brightly. How fond of the land of his birth; how patriotic
as an Englishman ; how loving in his own family, like a
1 See above, p. 301.
328 KA YE'S LIFE OF SIR JOHN MALCOLM.
1856. happy child among his happy children ; how kind and
l ' 7T> encouraging to persons younger than himself ; how true to a
genial nature ; how wise and truth-loving in his dealings with
those who had the honour and great privilege of his personal
friendship ! Such remembrances come like a flood upon me
when I think of past days at Hyde Hall. You were then a
very charming and happy child, my dear Kate, and you once
rode upon my back. How should you like that seat now ?..."
Kaye's Life of Sir John Malcolm came into Sedgwick's
hands soon afterwards. He read it with avidity, hardly
giving himself rest until he had finished it. On the whole he
was satisfied. "The style is not always lively," he wrote, "but
the facts would bear up any style, and (very properly I think)
Sir John often tells his own tale in his own words. This
breaks the continuity of the narrative, and makes it a mosaic,
rather than a fine painting but the mosaic will last 1 ." In
the following April The Edinburgh Review published a
criticism of the work in which Sir John's character and
administration were handled in a way which gave his relatives
much annoyance 2 . Sedgwick was almost as indignant as
they were. " I do think the reviewer very unjust," he wrote,
"abominably unfair. He allows the great moral and intel-
lectual qualities of your late father, he cannot deny his great
and most honourable labours in consolidating the power of
our Empire in India ; but it does appear strange to me that
he has no [generous] word to say respecting his struggles for
what he thought the interest and honour of the India Board.
There is wisdom and self-devotion in that last dying effort
which ought to have called forth a word of exalted praise.
In one respect your father was very unfortunate. He entered
the House of Commons far too late. You cannot, they say,
transplant a full-grown oak tree ; and the squabbles and battles
of parties were not a good intellectual and moral soil for one
1 To Miss Kate Malcolm, 31 December, 1856.
2 The Edinburgh Review, Vol. cv. pp. 391 419.
KA YES LIFE OF SIR JOHN MALCOLM. 329
who had been the conqueror, the legislator, and the father, of 1856.
the best regions in Central India. Nor was this all. He ^- 7 1 -
entered Parliament at a time when he was compelled to fight
a losing game. No power on earth could then stop the
Reform Bill.... Your father was a Tory so was the Iron
Duke so was Sir Robert Peel then, at least in name but
this is the very cause why the reviewer nibbles at Sir John's
reputation, and contrasts his failure (in which he bore only
a share with all who were then called staunch Tories) with
Lord Metcalfe's success in Jamaica, Canada, &c. The cases
are not parallel. Had your father failed in Canada and Lord
Metcalfe succeeded, then the comparison would have been
fair; but to contrast success in Canada with failure in
^stopping reform in the House of Commons is arrant non-
sense....
Never let your mind be troubled by party writings. Your
father will stand out in history as a great and good man.
Take him all in all, who is his match among the public
servants of India within this century ? The reviewer carps at
the redundancy of his language, and contrasts his voluminous
letters &c. with the finish of the Marquis Wellesley's des-
patches. But is this fair? The Marquis' despatches and
official papers are the published and finished compositions of
one of the first scholars of his day of one trained from his
youth upwards in all the refinements of classical education.
How different from your father's rough training turned out
in India almost as a child battling his way among oriental
customs and languages a man of deeds to make his name
live so long as history is held in honour. The wonder is that
he had time to think of writing history... 1 ."
In November of this year Lord Lansdowne offered to
present to Trinity College a memorial statue, to be placed in
the antechapel, as a pendant to the statue of Bacon. He
suggested the names of several men of letters, which were
finally reduced to two, Bentley and Barrow. Macaulay
1 To Miss Kate Malcolm, n May, 1857.
330 BARROW OR BENTLEY?
1856. supported the claims of the former ; Sedgwick, those of the
)t. 71. latter, and, at Whewell's suggestion, sent his views in writing
to Lord Lansdowne.
TKINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
December \%th, 1856.
"...Bentley was the prince of critics; but Barrow was
greater than a critic. He was a great inventive mathe-
matician, and a forerunner in clearing the way for the vast
discoveries of Newton. Were all the other works of Barrow
destroyed and utterly forgotten, he would still, as an inventive
mathematician, have an honourable niche among those who
have adorned the intellectual history of their country. This
is a point Macaulay had not touched upon. Barrow was
great as a moralist and divine, and, at the same time, a man
of gigantic learning. Under these points of view, Bentley
was, in some respects, far greater than Barrow. Not greater
as a moralist and divine ; not, I think, greater as a man of
learning ; but certainly far greater as a critic ; and his works
are, I am told, far better known among the classical writers
of the continent, than are the works of Barrow. This fact
should not be overlooked ; for those lights are the brightest
which shine the farthest. On the other hand, what vast
learning; what logical skill in the use of it, what grand old-
fashioned eloquence, what earnestness in the cause of moral
truth, do we find in the works of Barrow ! It may be said,
indeed, that he sometimes so refines, as to make distinctions
almost without differences that his matter is over-loaded
that he has no mercy on his readers and that he sometimes
wearies them by apparent repetitions. But, while we are
taking measure of the man, we must bear in mind that
he died young, and that nearly all his works are printed from
manuscripts not specially prepared for the press, and found
after his death. Had he lived to publish his own works, these
peculiarities might have been less prominent than they are
now. They mark, however, the mind of the man ; and they
also mark the old-fashioned training by which he became
BARROW OR BENTLEY? 331
what he was. We do not find these faults in the rasping 1856.
logic of Bentley, whether employed upon a question of verbal f ' ^
criticism, or in giving verbal criticism its noblest office, in
unmasking impostures or in vindicating truth. His works will
live so long as classical learning and almost supernatural
skill are held in honour ; and Barrow's works will live so long
as majestic eloquence, and learning, and moral truth, and
Christian hopes, are dear to the hearts of men.
I have often thought that the good sense and simplicity
of the Newtonian Philosophy not only produced a great
revolution in physical science, but also helped to bring about
a change in the literary taste and critical judgment of those
who lived after its introduction and acceptance. Bentley
lived, at any rate, after Newton's works had begun to tell
upon the minds of Cambridge men, and his mind seems to
have had a training far different from that of Barrow. In
comparing the two men this fact, is not, I think, to be left
quite out of the estimate. But I have no right to dwell upon
this point of speculation, and I have perhaps made a mistake
in obtruding it upon you.
There are other, and, some may think, insignificant points
of comparison, in which Barrow rises far above Bentley.
Barrow was a man of simplicity, piety, and sincerity, always
earnest and truth-loving; and he was a great benefactor to
the College. He is annually named with honour on our Com-
memoration Day on account of the active and munificent part
he took in forwarding the erection of our beautiful Library.
There is no corresponding commemoration of Bentley ; and
he was our Master during a very long period of broil and
litigation, produced, in part at least, by his own acts of
tyranny and dishonesty. In such a state of things, not only
was the temper of the Society greatly damaged, but its
reputation in the world inevitably suffered, so that under
his administration the College gradually sank below its
former level. In estimating his grade on a merely intellec-
tual scale, it might be well to shut out from sight such facts
332 BARROW OR BENTLEY?
856. as these. In comparing him with Barrow, and in reference
7 1 - to a monument of honour in our Chapel, they ought not, I
think, to be forgotten altogether. Lastly, there is another
point (of small importance indeed, and but as dust in the
balance) in which Barrow has the advantage over Bentley.
Barrow was a regularly bred Trinity College man. Bentley
was bred at St. John's, and in mature life was placed over our
Society by the Crown.
Pray, my Lord, forgive me for having given an opinion at
so much length, and about which I ought to be diffident, as
it is opposed to that of Macaulay, who is as stout-hearted a
Trinity man as I am, and is so incomparably my superior in
his writings and his range of literary knowledge. Some of
my friends have mentioned Dryden as third on the list of our
great names ; and it did seem to me (though I have too little
of the poetic element in my nature to be a good judge on
such a question) that Macaulay rather underrated Dryden.
But I agree with him in thinking that we should be wrong in
placing him before Barrow or Bentley...."
Sedgwick's view was supported by the Master and others ;
and no doubt exercised considerable influence on Lord
Lansdowne's decision. With this exception the Michaelmas
Term passed away without any noteworthy incident. " By
very great care I have kept my voice," Sedgwick wrote
when it was over ; " and I finished my autumnal course
yesterday without having once broken down, which was
far more than I could say of any course I had given
during the three preceding years 1 ." Advancing years had
taught him the necessity for taking care of himself. Here
is a picture of his winter garb at Norwich.
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
CAMBRIDGE, March nth, 1857.
"...Now, if you are a lady of good taste (as I am sure you
are), you may even improve by the contemplation of my
1 To Miss Gerard, 12 December, 1856.
WINTER GARB AT NORWICH. 333
outer adornments. 1st. A pair of black shaggy snow-boots i 8 57-
over my stout shoes. Nothing like building on a good *** 72 '
foundation. 2nd. A great seal-skin coat over my back,
which made me feel as warm as a Persian cat on a hearth-
rug. Its glossy black surface quite enchanted the ladies of
the Close so that they could hardly keep their hands off me.
3rd. A respirator over my mouth ; and the dangling bands
under it were in beautiful relief, and looked of true antique
orthodoxy. 4th. A black velvet cap over my head
looking, some thought, a little puritanical. Others thought
it very becoming to my pericranium, and that it set off the
roses and lilies which were fighting a doubtful battle on my
youthful cheek. ...5th. Over all was thrown a surplice, hood,
and scarf, which stood out above the seal-skin fur like one of
your wonderful crinoline petticoats, and gave me a look
of dignified and self-pleased dilatation as I walked behind my
silver poker to the Residentiary seat. Bating the respirator,
such was the costume in which I sat, and in which I
preached "
These unwonted precautions were only partially successful.
Early in March he paid a visit to some friends at Fakenham,
and was taken to see the ruins of Walsingham Priory. "I
drank at the wishing-well of famous memory," he tells us,
* and I wished my gout away ; but my prayers were not
heard ; and the night after they were uttered came a second
tormentor in the shape of an inflammatory cold 1 ." Still he
stuck manfully to his duties ; attended the meetings of the
Council of the Senate ; superintended Barrett's work in the
Museum ; and on Easter Day preached in the College
Chapel. After this, however, the cold returned, he became
" as melancholy as Niobe's great-grandfather, and as thin as
an old thread-paper," and, almost for the first time, was
unable to attend the Woodwardian audit. He was again a
prisoner, and the middle of May came before he could
1 To Sir J. F. W. Herschel, 23 May, 1857.
334 BLACKPOOL, MANCHESTER, LAKE DISTRICT.
1857. exclaim exultingly : " The weather-cock has turned tail ;
72p the wind is south. I have had such a sweet sleep as I have
not had for many years. I fell asleep about 1 1.30 p.m., and I
awoke as the clock struck 7 a.m. And the zephyrs are
blowing, and the grass is growing, and the birds are singing,
and the flies are buzzing. All nature is alive, and your old
uncle is come to life again 1 ."
This improvement, however, was but temporary. Some
unusually tedious Chapter-work at Norwich brought on the
old alarming attacks of giddiness, and June came before he
was fit to travel to Blackpool, where his relations were then
residing. Then he rapidly got well and strong ; and was
even tempted to go so far afield as Manchester. But the im-
prudence was not justified by success. " My head was per-
plexed", he writes, "by the interminable multitude of pictures
and other works of art ; and would not endure the posture of
gazing, hour after hour. If I had leisure I should like to
spend a month at Manchester, and devote four hours every
day to a study of the noble works of art 2 ." So he wisely
betook himself to Dent for a fortnight, and thence to the
Lakes, " to sweep up a little geological dust that had not
been swept up before 3 ."
To tJie Duke of Argyll.
DENT, October 2ot/i, 1857.
My dear Lord Duke,
I left my duties at Norwich on the first day of
this month ; and after a halt of two days at Cambridge,
came down to the old parsonage of Dent. . .
You must not think, from some words I scattered, that
our Cathedral congregations are always composed of a few
tottering old women. I preached every Sunday during my
three months Residence of the past year to a very large
congregation. And it went on increasing, for every corner
1 To MissF. Hicks, 12 May, 1857.
2 To Miss Kate Malcolm, i July, 1857.
3 To the same, 7 September, 1857.
INDIAN POLICY. 335
of our large Cathedral choir was at length filled, and I had 1857.
each Sunday of the summer months a congregation of about &*. 72.
1,200 persons sitting under me...
I passed the fast-day at Dent, and was glad to find my
dear, honest, humble, countrymen in a state of strong feeling
at the dismal news from India, My brother addressed them
in the morning, and I in the afternoon ; and we found in the
dish for the Indian Relief Fund between six and seven
pounds, a considerable part of it in copper-money given by
very poor people. I was truly rejoiced to think that many
an honest prayer was that day sent up to God by warm and
faithful hearts in behalf of our poor suffering fellow-Christians
in India. I have no fear for the ultimate result. Good will,
I trust, come out of evil a better, wiser, and more Christian
rule over our millions of fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects
in India. And already, how well have the true, loyal, brave,
Christian hearts of many men and many women shone out in
this hour of terrible trial and suffering ! Away, for ages to come,
with a pettifogging mercantile narrow policy which led rulers
(with no more feeling for Christian truth than was lodged in
the threads of their purses) to turn out an honest convert to
the religion of Christ from the ranks of the Sepoy regiments
which made them pet and fondle the wretched idolaters, and
to discourage Christianity by their policy and by their
example. Let the Indian nations feel that we rule them, and
mean to rule them, with a high hand. Let them know that
we are Christians, and will, with all our moral might, main-
tain the faith we have in our hearts accepted. Let them
know, by our acts, that we love them and seek their good
spiritual and temporal and then truth must triumph over
falsehood in the end, and in God's own time. But I beg your
Grace's pardon for running on at this rate...
I am, my dear Lord Duke,
Very truly and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
336 LIVINGSTONE AT CAMBRIDGE.
1857- TO Miss Isabella Herschel.
JEt. 72.
TRINITY COLLEGE, October 29^, 1857.
"...On returning at the end of last week I found the College
in turmoil the Fellows hammering at a new constitution-
all the juniors mad for the repeal of the celibacy clause all
dreaming of loves, olive-branches, nursery-maids, toys, and
trundling hoops etc. to decorate our old cloisters. Poor
green-horns! they little think what troubles they are trying
to bring upon themselves !...
I am a little sorrowful at the thought that I am going to
give my final course of lectures. Tis high time to strike
after forty years of pretty hard work, is it not ?..."
Early in December Dr Livingstone came to Cambridge,
and lectured in the Senate House and Town Hall. Sedg-
wick had read his travels, and, besides, had made his personal
acquaintance in the previous September at Kendal and
from what he saw of him then, and from the interest aroused
by what he had accomplished in Africa, was ready to wel-
come him heartily as a friend when he came to Cambridge.
Those present in the Senate House on Friday, 4 December
^57) will not readily forget the striking scene. The building
was crowded in every part; and Livingstone already well
known as an explorer and a missionary in South Africa
received an enthusiastic welcome from both old and young.
"He stood before us," said Sedgwick, "a plain, single-
minded, cheerful man somewhat attenuated by years of
toil, and with a face tinged by the sun of Africa : and he
addressed us in unadorned and simple words 1 ." As the
lecture proceeded a plain practical statement of what he had
done and what he hoped to do, set forth without self-glorifi-
cation, and relieved with many a sly touch of humour his
hearers felt that they were in the presence of a leader among
1 Dr Livingstone's Cambridge Lectures, together with a prefatory letter by the
Rev. Professor Sedgwick. 8vo. Cambridge, 1858, Letter, p. iv.
LIVINGSTONE AT CAMBRIDGE. 337
men ; and when he concluded with the fervent appeal : 1857.
" Africa is now open ! do not let it be shut again ! I go back ^ 7 2 -
to try to make an open path for commerce and Christianity ;
do you carry out the work which I have begun ; I leave it
with you!" there was silence for a few seconds, and then
applause which those who had known Cambridge for more
than fifty years declared to be the heartiest they had ever
heard within those walls. Then Sedgwick rose. His frame
was slightly bowed, and he wore a black velvet skull-cap, with
many coats and wrappers ; but his eye was not dim, nor his
natural force abated. He seemed to be the impersonation of
an ancient University, welcoming an honoured guest. He
advanced towards the great map of Africa on which Living-
stone had pointed out his route, and gazed at it wistfully. "I
dare not speak of its geology," he said, in a voice that
trembled a little, not from weakness but from emotion ; and
then, in his most earnest manner with all the vigour and
heartiness of his younger days he entreated his hearers
not merely to welcome and thank Livingstone for what
he had said, but to carry forward the noble work which
he had so auspiciously begun. His words were few, but
well-chosen, and when he sat down the applause told
that they had gone straight to the hearts of his hearers.
The cheers were as hearty as those which had greeted
Livingstone.
On the next evening Livingstone dined in the Hall of
Trinity College as Sedgwick's guest. It was Audit Day,
and a large party was present. In the Combination Room
Sedgwick proposed Livingstone's health. It was then his
intention to return to Africa without delay, so that the speech
partook of the character of a farewell. With Sedgwick's life-
long hatred of slavery his interest in all efforts to suppress
it and to improve the condition of the Africans and his
warm friendship for his guest, we can well believe that his
words were " so heartfelt, so truthful, so pathetic, that there
were more tearful eyes than dry ones at its conclusion."
S. II. 22
338 LETTER FROM LIVINGSTONE.
1858. Shortly before he left England, Livingstone wrote to
t> 73- Sedgwick :
From Dr David Livingstone.
50 ALBEMARLE ST., LONDON,
6th February, 1858.
My dear Friend,
This is the last week but one I have to spend in
England, and as a parting salutation I shall refer to a loving
Christian letter you favoured me with more than six weeks ago.
I thank you sincerely for the expressions of sympathy it contains,
and assure you that I go forth again cheered by feeling that I have
such as you looking on and beckoning me to proceed.
That you may have a clear idea of my objects I may state
that they have something more in them than meets the eye. They
are not merely exploratory, for I go with the intention of benefiting
both the African and my own countrymen. I take a practical
mining geologist from the School of Mines to tell us of the mineral
resources of the country. Then an economic botanist to give a full
report of the vegetable productions the fibrous, gummy, and
medicinal substances together with the dye-stuffs everything which
may be useful in commerce. An artist to give the scenery. A naval
officer to tell of the capacity of the river-communication, and a
moral agent to lay a Christian foundation for anything that may
follow. All this machinery has for its ostensible object the develop-
ment of African trade, and the promotion of civilization, but, what I
tell to none but such as you in whom I have confidence, is this : I
hope it may result in an English colony in the healthy highlands of
Central Africa (I have told it only to the Duke of Argyle). I believe
the highlands are healthy. The wild vine flourishes there. Europeans,
with a speedy transit to the coast, would collect and transmit the
produce to the sea, and in the course of time, say when my head is
low, free labour on the African soil might render slave-labour, which
is notoriously dear labour, quite unprofitable. I take my wife with
me, and one child. We erect an iron house near the Kafue to serve
as a depot that we may not appear as vagabonds in the country.
And may God prosper our attempts to promote the welfare of
our fellow-men !
With this short statement you may perceive our ulterior objects.
I want you to have an idea of them. I shall always remember you
and Trinity with fond affection. Pray remember me kindly, and say
farewell to Professor Whewell. Your Auditor has given me two
dozen of audit-ale, and I hope to drink your health and prosperity
to your college with it on the banks of the Zambesi.
I am ever affectionately yours,
DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
PREFACE TO LIVINGSTONES LECTURES. 339
To this letter Sedgwick replied at length, but, as his 1858.
letter has been already printed, we will content ourselves &*-. 73.
with a single extract :
10 February ', 1858.
"...What a glorious prospect is before you! the com-
mencement of the civilisation of Africa, the extension of our
knowledge of all the kingdoms of nature, the production of
great material benefits to the old world, the gradual healing
of that foul and fetid ulcer the slave-trade, the one grand
disgrace and weakness of Christendom, that has defiled the
hands of all those who have had any dealings with it ; and
last, but not least nay, the greatest of all, and the true end
of all the lifting up of the poor African from the earth, the
turning his face heavenwards, and the glory of at length (after
all ' his sufferings and our sins) calling him a Christian
brother. May our Lord and Saviour bless your labours,
and may His Holy Spirit be with you to the end of your
life upon this troubled world !
I am an old man, and I shall (so far as I am permitted to
look into the future) never see your face again.... Once for all,
God bless you 1 !"
Soon afterwards it was decided to print Livingstone's two
Lectures, and Sedgwick undertook to supply a preface. It
was written, he tells us, in the intervals of a long and severe
illness, but it betrays no sign of weakness, or want of ability.
It is at once a careful digest of Livingstone's two memorable
journeys across Africa, an analysis of his character, and a
forcible appeal for a more humane treatment of the African
races at the hands of England. As one of his friends wrote :
" There is much more of information, and still more of moral
suggestion, in your introduction than in the Lectures*."
1 The Personal Life of David Livingstone. By W. G. Blaikie, D.D. 8vo.
I London, 1880, p. 239.
2 From David Milne Holme, Esq. 23 August, 1858. The following extract
I from one of Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick's letters, dated Lenox, 6 August, 1860,
' is worth quotation. Sedgwick had sent her a copy of Livingstone's Lectures.
22 2
340 DEATH OF DEAN CONYBEARE.
1858. Probably nothing contributed more directly to the establish-
Et - 73- ment of the Universities Mission to Central Africa than this
short essay.
The death of Dean Conybeare, which took place in
August, 1857, had greatly distressed Sedgwick. As usual on
such occasions he thought more of his friend's widow and
children than of himself, and they were evidently much
comforted by his sympathy. One of the Dean's sons thanks
him for his " affectionate letters, with all the warm memories
of olden days, days which I too remember as warmly, and the
kind child's friend who lent his curious store of hammers, and
joined in our games, and, best of all, told us such enchant-
ing stories of wandering in the bowels of the earth." Of
the letters referred to one only has been preserved, in which
Sedgwick speaks of the Dean as " one of my dearest friends,
and one of my earliest teachers in geology 1 ".
To Dean Peacock.
TRINITY COLLEGE, February \6tk, 1858.
"...I have not communicated with the Commissioners, and
hardly have been in a state to think steadily of anything.
I stick to the views we opened in our Blue Book, (i) To
make the Professorships worth having, and to compel a bond
fide residence and ample teaching. (2) To make the Colleges
pay for new endowments, each out of its own funds, and in
proportion to its net income. (3) To encourage goodwill
study, by allowing men (after the pucpos 7009 as poor Sidney
Walker 2 pleasantly called it) to take their line, viz. : theology,
"For the giver's sake, and for that it condenses into a sort of essence your
friend's large book, it is very precious to me. Still that large book, so full of
information and instruction, and so vitalised with the heart of the writer, I had
read faithfully. What divine patience, and hope that will not abate one jot that
good man has, when, in the face of the growth of the slave-trade, he perseveres in
his great, hard work ! His pains will not be lost. Holy efforts coinciding with
God's laws never are."
1 To Rev. C. R. Conybeare, i January, 1858.
2 William Sidney Walker, Trin. Coll. B.A. 1819, afterwards Fellow,
died in 1846.
ECLIPSE OF THE SUN. 341
law, physic, and perhaps some other rope's end. Then let 1858.
them go to drill with their own Professor and his staff, and so ^ 73-
pass to their bachelorhood if they answer this drill. But
these not to be counted as Honours. Honours, however, to
be given (and rewarded) by new Triposes. Such e.g. as
the Natural Sciences Tripos already established ; though I
grieve to say it works very costively and such (speculatively)
as a Tripos that would take in Law, Modern History,
Divinity or any other many-limbed monster to be hatched
hereafter in the womb of Time, or brought forth at once by
tapping the academic head as Jupiter once tapped his own.
The ordinary honours, classical and mathematical, by all
means keep. (4) To have new buildings erected forthwith
in the old Botanical Garden, including ample lecture-rooms,
experiment-rooms (absolutely necessary), one or two new
Museums, etc. etc. There was a plan, and a fair one, but not
a brick has been laid down or is likely to be. (5) Send an
order to the University for every man of M.A. degree or higher
to read old Baxter's shove. This, with a hint about Parliamen-
tary purgatives, might stir us, etc. etc. These are, in kind, the
topics I should write about to your Commissioners. But do
you mean to send out a Blue Book and publish men's letters?
If so, we must look demure ; for I think this letter, for
example, would look a little odd in the page of a blue-
backed Parliamentary folio. Don't you think so ?..."
To Professor Miller.
March i6th, 1858.
"My dear Miller,
...I went yesterday to Peakirk in Lincolnshire, and
there I saw a galaxy of astronomers ; and many telescopes
standing in a row, like * the four and twenty fiddlers ' you
have, no doubt, heard of. But the wedding-ring of the Sun
and the Moon was not seen for a single moment, to our great
disgust. Strange that so many notorious sky-sweepers could
not contrive to sweep the clouds away for one minute. But
man is born to sorrow ; and we had nothing better to do than
342 FRENCH FEELING AGAINST ENGLAND.
1858. to twist our thumbs and talk about patience. The barn-
Et 73- door fowls and the ducks did not care one fig about the
darkness, though for a quarter of a minute it was such as
might be felt. So no more at present from yours in all
weathers,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
Sunday morning, March 2U/, 1858.
"...Early in our Christmas Vacation I went for a
few days to Norwich, that my ears might be cheered with the
merry voices of four happy young children to whom I stand
in the august relationship of great-uncle ; and I may well be
a great-uncle ; for if I live till to-morrow evening I shall have
completed my 73rd year. By changing a single word I might
apply two lines of Milton to myself:
' How soon has Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three and seventieth year ! '
or I may say with Shakespeare :
'on our vain decrees
'The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
' Steals, ere we can effect them ! '
Or, better still, may I say with another poet, whose lips were
touched with coals of living fire from the altar : ' Now, also,
that I am old and grey-headed, O God forsake me not ! ' In
what strange channels our thoughts run ! the words great-
uncle suggested my birthday ; and the thoughts of my
birthday brought out these quotations. 'Tis Sunday morning.
Your letter has been just read. May all earthly blessings
be with you in full measure ! I am sorry to hear of the bad
temper of the French; but I do not wonder at it. I think
that our laws require some change. They ought to be more
stringent in cases of conspiracy to commit murder. If the
Ministers do nothing to mend them, I shall call them a pack
of sneaks willing to bow their necks to our Radicals. What
do you think of this from a man who has been called a Whig
(or sometimes a radical) ever since the time he learnt to
MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION. 343
shave himself? I think the Emperor's manifesto good and 1858.
true.... 1 " -t. 73-
To Mrs Cropper.
LOWESTOFT, June $th, 1858.
" My dear Mrs Cropper,
...It is impossible for me to say whether your
friend would do wisely in giving the course of popular
lectures you allude to. All I know is, that several clergymen
have made similar attempts, and committed themselves to
assertions some of which I think incorrect as to fact, and
inconclusive as to argument. In all such cases lectures do
more harm than good ; because a hearer who is afterwards
told of any mis-statement as to fact may easily be led to
think that the fault is in the Mosaic record, and not in the
ignorance of the lecturer. I once thought (with Buckland)
that we had good physical proof of a general deluge that
must have happened a few thousand years since. I afterwards
doubted the evidence (I mean the geological evidence),
though I still believe that a vast physical change has taken
place in the surface of the northern hemisphere within a
recent period. By recent, I mean again, a period of only
a few thousand years. Another opinion I formerly held
was this : viz. that the modern period was more distinctly
separable from the anterior period than it proves to be on
further investigation.... Do you think your friend has all
his facts well in hand ? If not, he certainly is ill-prepared
for his task. I have no fear about the ultimate result, but
we have ample work for another half-century before we can
be prepared to draw our lines of demarcation correctly, and
till that is done I should think it premature to talk of
1 After the attempt on the life of Napoleon III. by Felix Orsini (14 Jan. 1858),
there was a strong feeling in France against England, where Orsini had resided
for some years. Lord Palmerston introduced a Bill (8 February) "to amend the
law with relation to the crime of conspiracy to murder." On this the Govern-
ment were defeated and resigned. Lord Derby, on taking office (i March), said
nothing about altering the law of conspiracy, though in a previous speech (4
February) he had intimated that he thought some alteration desirable.
344 MOSAIC RECORD OF CREATION.
1858. comparing the geological days (or periods) with the Mosaic
t - 73- days. That this will be done one day I have very confident
expectation, because we have already done much, though
a few blots remain to be removed by the honest scrubbing-
brushes of the rising generation of geologists 1 ....
I have sent you a drum-head judgment upon some
difficult questions, about which I should be sorry to give
a public lecture, lest I should be a false guide over points
respecting which I do not profess to see my own way very
clearly. Still I do think the knights of the hammer have
done some good, perhaps more than the old Templars, (i)
It is something to prove against some sturdy infidels (who
would scoff at the Bible if it were spoken of) that the world
is not eternal. Therefore it was created by a power external
to itself, acting with prescient wisdom, and ordaining all laws
by which the order of nature is maintained. (2) The same
creative power has not been quiescent, but has been employed
again and again in replenishing and renovating the earth.
(3) Land and sea have changed place. The tops of our
highest hills have been under water. Therefore the fact of an
historic deluge is not impossible or improbable. (4) Though
the world is very old (we have no measure of the epochs
of geology, only we are certain that they involve enormously
long periods) man is but a creature of yesterday....
Ever your true-hearted old friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
Sedgwick's mind was evidently still full of the subject of
the last letter while in Residence at Norwich in August.
" Today," he writes, " I preached a long sermon on the
first commandment to a very large congregation ; and, God
willing, I hope to go on with the subject in another discourse ;
as my sermon of today was in a good measure introductory
1 The omitted passage contains a discussion on the meaning of the days of
creation. Sedgwick's views on this question have been already stated. See
above, pp. 76 80.
TENURE OF FELLOWSHIPS. 345
and historical 1 ." This intention was frustrated by a serious 1858.
attack of giddiness, which came on while preaching, perhaps ^ te 73-
the very sermon to which he here alludes ; and his doctor
ordered him to abstain from sermons, letter writing, and all
mental exertion. " I have obeyed him so well," he wrote
in October, " that my head, which was a few weeks since
like a humming-top, is now as quiet and steady as a great
spherical stone on a gatepost ; yes ! and almost as dull
and senseless 2 ." These attacks, which now came on more
frequently than heretofore, determined him to resign his seat
on the Council of the Senate, and to announce once more his
approaching retirement from his Professorship.
At the end of October a meeting of members of the
Governing Bodies of the Colleges was held in the Arts
School, to discuss the statutes proposed by the Commissioners.
It would be beside our present purpose to discuss this complex
question ; and we only notice it so far as Sedgwick was
concerned with it. The Commissioners had suggested, among
other changes, that " any Fellow should vacate his Fellowship
at the end of ten years after attaining the full standing of
Master of Arts, except in certain specified cases." This
was opposed by the Master of St John's College, Dr Bateson.
Sedgwick seconded his motion. It will be interesting, having
regard to the measures since adopted, to note the line he took.
" He looked," he said, "upon his Fellowship as a freehold. It
was a proud day for him when he was made a Fellow of
Trinity ; he felt that he possessed something which he had
gained honourably, and which he could look forward to as
bearing upon his success in life. Most men had that feeling,
and he could not conceive anything more degrading than
to make it a terminable annuity. He had been a Fellow for
a long time, for it was now fifty-four years since he was a
freshman ; but his conscience did not accuse him of being an
idle Fellow. With respect to the line which he had taken,
1 To Mrs John Sedgwick, 8 August, 1858.
2 To Miss Kate Malcolm, 16 October, 1858.
346 NEW STATUTES FOR TRINITY COLLEGE.
1858. whether wise or unwise, good or bad, he could not have
* 73- taken it if his Fellowship had not been a freehold. This
might be egotistical, but let every man speak from his own
experience. He had his Fellowship to rest upon, for there
was no great harvest from his Professorship. He still held
his Fellowship ; in a few months he intended to resign his
Professorship, and retire upon his freehold. This was an
example, and he had a right to speak of it. He believed
that, with a modification of circumstances, the same sentiments
applied to many around him. He believed, with the Master
of St John's, that the proposition of the Commissioners would
tend to the moral degradation of the different societies; it
would encourage favouritism, and all those points which
lowered the moral standard of academic bodies.
The proposals of the Commissioners entailed a long series
of meetings of the Governing Body of Trinity College. These
discussions were exceedingly distasteful to Sedgwick, who in
his old age had ceased to be a reformer, except on one or two
vital questions such as the abolition of tests. He speaks of
being " worried by the College meetings, where we wrangle
and discuss the new Statutes; " and when they were completed
he has no good word to say for them :
To Miss Gerard.
CAMBRIDGE, April 13, 1859.
"...The post has... brought me our new Statutes under the
formidable seal of the Parliamentary Commission. They
came to me because the Master happens to be out of
Cambridge. So I have sent our Chapel Clerk (a kind of
College Mercury} to summon all the Fellows of the House
who are now in residence, to meet me, in two hours, at our
Combination Room, that we may look at our chains, and
think about fitting them on. I hate the sight of them ; for I
have had a peep, and I think their provisions may take away
all future glory from the noble society where have lived such
men as Newton, and Bacon, and Barrow, and Bentley, and
Ray, and Cowley, and Dryden, and thousands of good and
FORTIETH COURSE OF LECTURES. 347
true men. We are working well on the whole. We might 1858.
have been improved on material points. These the Com- &*- 73-
missioners have not touched ; but they have done that which
will tend, I verily believe, to degrade the moral character and
independent loyalty of the College. Forgive this outbreak..."
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
CAMBRIDGE, December Stti, 1858.
"...During this Michaelmas term, so soon as I returned
from my poor suffering brother, I began my lectures. I
breakfast early perhaps more early than your dear noble-
hearted father used to do at Hyde Hall. It is the true break
of fast one cup of coffee and a biscuit. My lecture at 12.
About 1.30 I returned, and latterly have shut myself up all
the rest of the day, dining at 2, or 2.30, very very sparely,
and in the evening avoiding all reading requiring thought.
I was ordered to this course in consequence of a tendency to
giddiness after the excitement of the lecture. So I have not
been dining in Hall, and I have hardly ever been out. What
did I do in the evening ? I twirled my thumbs ; read reviews ;
a few sermons ; a few volumes of Walter Scott (I am thankful
to say that I can enjoy them almost as much as ever) ;
naughty, nasty, surly Dean Swift (but a wonderful man with
all that); and Shakespeare. And I wrote many letters. They
form a part of my malady. ' Write as few letters as you can,
and write no long ones' has been rung in my ears by Dr
Paget almost day by day since I began to show signs of
giddiness. On Monday I finished with a terribly long
address, and to a crowded class. I was much cheered by
them ; but it was a sorrowful feeling to me when I had to
tell them that it was the last lecture of my last course...."
To Rev. P. B. Brodie.
CAMBRIDGE, December 3U/, 1858.
"...I gave my 4Oth and last course of lectures during the
past Michaelmas term, and they were addressed to the largest
class that ever sat before me. From my elevated platform I
348 INTENDED RESIGNATION.
1858. declare that the lads looked as if they had been jammed down
Et< 73> by a pavier's hammer ! It was, however, a painful task to
tell them in my concluding lecture that I should never again
address them as Professor. I cannot now do the exploring
field-work. Tis poor work to be retailing other men's
adventures. Were I to consult my personal convenience I
should resign my Chair immediately ; but there is much work
still to be done in the Museum which cannot be well done
without my superintendence. I do hope in the spring months
to put the remaining chaos in order by help of my younger
geological friends. And I have an excellent assistant in
young Barrett. He works, however, exclusively at the
palaeontological department. I wish you had time to visit
our Museum. It would, I think, make you open your eyes a
little. Our chalk collection was poor when you last saw the
Museum. Now, it is excellent. Of course you have heard of
the works going on in the thin bed of upper Green- sand.
Many hundred men are employed in turning out this (so-
called) coprolite bed, and many steam-engines are working
machinery to wash out the phosphoritic nodules. During
this process they find multitudes of strange fossils. About
thirty species of Reptiles, three species of Pterodactyles,
multitudinous specimens of Ckimara 1 ) etc. etc. have been
turned out, and found their way into our Museum...."
A rough outline of this last lecture written very hastily,
and in parts almost illegible has been found among Sedg-
wick's papers. The preparation of such a document may be
taken as evidence that in what he had said about immediate
resignation he was then perfectly in earnest ; and that he
proposed to take a formal farewell of his class. It is much
to be regretted that he did not take the further precaution of
having his words accurately reported.
The lecture was divided into two parts : a history of the
Museum, that is, of the Museum as developed during his
1 The group of Chimaeroid Fishes, including various genera, e.g. Hybodns, etc.
LAST LECTURE. 349
own occupation of the Chair; and, a history of geological 1858.
work and speculation. ^ 73 '
The first part opened with a biographical sketch, which
we will transcribe, as it amplifies, and in some particulars
corrects, what has been already said respecting Sedgwick's
early years as Woodwardian Professor.
Elected 1818, Spring. First lectures, Easter term of
Therefore 4oth course now finished.
(1) What led me to be a candidate? Was it that I was like an
overloaded dam ready to burst its barrier? That I was anxious
to form a store of knowledge, etc. ? Not so. The dam was empty.
Cuvier's Theory several Reviews E. D. Clarke's Lectures . But
E. D. Clarke was a benefactor, and how. He gave a start he
kept us awake, etc. . And I had when a schoolboy made a
collection of carboniferous fossils.
(2) I lost my health by hard reading by the festive habits
of the University and for five years I was in a condition often of
wretchedness 2 . Caution the young men. Therefore in 1818 I
became a candidate for the Woodwardian Chair then vacant. I
knew very little indeed of geology just enough to know that it was
a glorious and healthy field in which I might find ample enjoyment
and better health. I gained the chair in open election. I had
given no promise except to lecture on geology and the University
(by a special Grace) took good care that some lectures should
be given 3 ; but they provided no lecture-room. No lectures, no
pay. About two years afterwards Mr Serjeant Frere, Master of
Downing let me tell it with gratitude introduced a Grace (still
on condition of lectures) that another .100 should be added 4 .
Ever since .218 a year.
First lectures in 1819, on Isle of Wight specimens 5 . Collections
year by year from the newest strata down to oldest from Land's
End in Cornwall to John o' Groat's house and the Head of Hoy.
Arrangements made year by year. But about 1822 fears of an
approaching state of suffocation geological congestion. Therefore
a syndicate (Wordsworth V. C.) 6 ; and a proposal of Botanic Garden
1 This draft had not been discovered when it was concluded (Vol. i. pp. 203,
204) that Sedgwick began to lecture in the Lent Term of 1819.
* Sedgwick broke down in 1813 (Vol. i. p. 127). For the effects of this
illness, as admitted by himself, see Vol. i. pp. 130, 499.
3 Vol. i. pp. 197, 198.
4 Ibid. p. 224. The Grace in question passed in 1821.
6 Collected in company with Mr Henslow (Ibid. p. 204).
6 A Syndicate, of which Sedgwick was a member, was appointed by Grace,
14 March, 1821, "for considering and reporting to the Senate on the means
proposed to be adopted for building a Museum for the Woodwardian collection,
and for obtaining estimates, and other requisites for the same." This Syndicate
350 LAST LECTURE.
1858. rejected, and why 1 . Waited for the new Library buildings, and
i. 73. before I had a Museum I waited about 24 years.
This is succeeded by an enumeration of the various gifts
made to the Museum year by year, most of which have been
already chronicled in our narrative. The following notes,
however, are valuable.
Enormous labour of unpacking in 1841. More than a quarter of
a year in unrolling specimens. Great cost to the University, and
great to myself. Not on the Committee of fitting-up the Museum,
and some waste of capital and accumulation of the Woodwardian
Estate. Too architectural worse than nothing but still good.
Three objects at starting: (i) a new museum; (2) an adequate
collection; (3) a course of lectures. All are accomplished all I
ever looked forward to. Geology a hard task-mistress, but paid me
in health and happiness. Geologist like the fabled Antaeus. He
may be at first half conquered by the task before him but the
moment he touches mother earth with his hammer down go all
fear and ill-bodings to the nether darkness 0eols eTrix^oi/iots.
Woodward put the ban of domestic sterility on his Professor, but
my Museum is in the place of wife and children ; and my family are
mute as the inhabitants of the water, and never scold me, nor ever
express a want and how few men of the Benedictine Order can say
as much. It is well to laugh at our chains while they are fast locked
upon us. But after 40 years 'tis time for me to put my house in order.
The second part of the lecture is an outline of the
geological history of the earth probably a resume of the
course of lectures he had just been delivering. He touches
on Lyell's views "not true, and based on a false analogy;"
on Hugh Miller's interpretation of the days of creation
" much truth here, but not exact truth, and I am bound to
tell you truth so far as I know it ; " on the " theory of
development and transmutation," which is criticised on the
lines laid down in his article in The Edinburgh Review ;
reported (without date) that the Woodwardian surplus amounted to ^1700, which
might, they thought, be properly applied to the erection of a suitable Museum and
Lecture-room; and "that the University should, from its own funds, add such
sum as may be necessary for the speedy erection of sufficient and proper buildings,
whereby the accommodation of other Professors also maybe materially consulted."
This Report was never confirmed by the Senate, and the subject dropped.
1 This must refer to some scheme, now forgotten, for erecting a Geological
Museum in the old Botanic Garden, before the new Library buildings were
planned.
DEATH OF JOHN SEDGWICK. 351
"the actual advance of development," from a geological 1859.
standpoint, is pointed out ; and, in conclusion, the " fcetal ^- 74-
theory " comes in for its share of criticism. " It cannot
explain advance of organic type, because all our forms would
be lower than the parent type. But ladies may in the end
(says the author of the Vestiges} produce a race of angels.
I fear they will be dark ones." Here the MS. ends.
At the beginning of February, 1859, Sedgwick lost his
brother John. The event had been long expected, for he had
for some months been suffering from a painful illness which
could have but one termination, and when they parted
in January they felt that they should never meet again.
Soon afterwards his son was unanimously chosen by the
statesmen of Dent to be their Vicar. Sedgwick was delighted
with this arrangement. " I shall now have two homes in
Dent," he wrote, " for Jane and Isabella mean to go into a
cottage on the outskirts of the village." From another point
of view the change was not agreeable, for it put an end
to the domestic life at Norwich with which his nephew's
marriage had supplied him. For a time Sedgwick felt the
change acutely, but, as his nephews and nieces grew older, he
generally had one or two living with him, over whom he
watched with the tenderest care providing alike for their
instruction and their amusement.
To Mrs Peacock.
CAMBRIDGE, April yth, 1859.
My dear Mrs Peacock,
I came back from Norwich on Thursday Your
very kind note was on my table containing the excellent
photograph of my dear friend the late dean 1 . I value it very
greatly, and thank you for it with my whole heart. When
I look at it, it brings back to my memory a beautiful
sentence of Dr Johnson in one of his Papers in The Idler.
Speaking of portrait-painting, he calls it : " an art which is
employed in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in
1 Dean Peacock died 9 November, 1858.
352 BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT ABERDEEN.
1859. quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the
* 74- presence of the dead 1 ." Is not this well said ? Johnson
never saw a photograph. The sunbeam portrait is indeed a
living likeness, and almost realizes the concluding words of
the quotation. Again I thank you for it. I shall put it in
a frame, and hang it up in my bedroom on a wall where hang
the likenesses of my father and mother, and some others
whom I loved....
Affectionately and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
In July Sedgwick took his widowed sister-in-law and her
daughter to Wales for a short holiday ; then had " a dash of
two days into the Lake country" by himself ; and in September
went to Aberdeen for the meeting of the British Association
of which the Prince Consort was President. He had a cold
when he started which the journey did not improve ; but he
was well enough to read a paper in the Geological Section
On Faults in Cumberland and Lancashire. No abstract of it
appears in the Report of the Association ; but its title
indicates that it was the result of his late expeditions into the
Lake Country. The meeting ended with an excursion to
Balmoral, which Sedgwick was persuaded to join.
To Mrs Richard Sedgwick.
September 2$tk, 1859.
"...We started at 6 a.m. precisely, and I did not reach my
hotel till one o'clock on Friday morning, much fatigued, and
half cramped to death by overdose packing. But I did enjoy
the day, spite of the packing, and spite of the cold which
would not leave me. We had a most kind and courteous
reception. The Castle is new, but in excellent taste. It
stands in a beautiful park surrounded by wild Highland
mountains. The Prince wore the full Highland costume,
bare knees and kilt ; so did the Prince of Wales and Prince
Arthur. The Queen did look happy and well. She and her
1 The Idler for Saturday, 24 February, 1759. Johnson's Works, ed. 1787,
viii. 179.
VISIT TO BALMORAL. 353
three daughters wore the Stuart tartan, and each had the 1859.
Highland scarf with the buckle on the left shoulder. The ^ 74-
Prince invited me, and urged me, to remain all night and
dine with the Queen. But alas ! I had no dress fit to appear
in. ' General Grey will help you with clothes,' was the
remark. But indeed I was unfit to remain, so I begged off.
We had a muster of the clans, each coming in full costume,
headed by its chieftain, and attended by its bag-piper. The
sight was beautiful and striking, but the skirling pipes were a
dire ear-torment, at least so I thought. When all was ready
the Queen took her place upon a terrace, and then a
succession of games began : foot-races ; tossing the sledge-
hammer; tossing the bar &c. ; ending with Highland reels.
Then we had a lunch in the ball-room. Everything was
beautifully and amply prepared. For my share I secured a
very large basin of plain Scotch broth, which saved my life, I
think ; and I then had the wing of a chicken and a glass of
sherry. Others had every kind of luxury you can see at a
lunch. About 5.30 the Queen retired amidst the cheers of
the multitude, the two regimental bands playing God save
the Queen "
Sedgwick's friend Miss Malcolm was at this time residing
in Devonshire. " I give you joy of your present charming
residence," he wrote ; " Have I not threaded all the ravines
and 'bosky bowers' on the flanks of Dartmoor? Have I
not made my hammer ring in Holme Chase and in the
country round about it ? Have I not seen the granite
shooting its great veins through the slate rocks ? I wish
I could revisit those sweet and grand spots where Nature
has indulged in her revelry ; and then I would teach you
to suck marrow from her bones, and not to confine your
admiration to the sprigs upon her green mantle! 1 " His
next letter to her describes his proceedings during the
Michaelmas Term :
1 To Miss Malcolm, 15 October, 1859.
s. ii. 23
354 UNIVERSITIES MISSION TO AFRICA.
J 859 ' To Miss Kate Malcolm.
Mt. 74-
TRINITY COLLEGE, November 29/72, 1859.
My dear Kate,
...About a week after my return to College I began
my lectures, and have ever since been going on steadily
without much fatigue, and without a single interruption.
Thank God ! I am infinitely better than I was last year ;
and I have given two field-lectures during the term, once
reaching as far as the Ely clay-pits, with a part of my class.
Bravo ! for an old toothless Professor who has been lecturing
every year since he began his first course in the spring of
1819! To keep my head up I avoid all dinner-parties;
though I sometimes go out in the evening. So sternly do I
keep my rule, that I refused two dinner invitations while the
Bishop of Oxford and Sir George Grey and Mr Gladstone
were here to attend the meeting in behalf of a Church Mission
to Central Africa. We had a glorious meeting. It was the
great event of this Michaelmas term. I was urged to take a
more prominent part on the occasion ; but I refused, on the
ground of health. I dared not trust myself to make any
leading motion, lest my head should give way under the
excitement. I am still (without great care) liable to attacks
of giddiness ; and when they come upon me I am unable to
gather my thoughts together. I have two more lectures to
give this week. Next week (at least during the first half of
it) Science must bow its beggarly head to the great divinity
L. S. D. We have our annual Trinity College audit, and I
shall have also to attend the Chapter at Norwich. Those
services to Mammon being over, I shall give my concluding
lecture ; and it may perhaps be as long as one of old Kittle-
drummers sermons described in the true history of Old
Mortality. My course ended, an examination. The exami-
nation papers read (a good week's work, but not good for weak
nerves and sore eyes), I shall be again a free man. If I can
keep bronchitis from my throat I do hope to go down to Dent
LAST LECTURE. 355
and to celebrate Christmas Day in the old parsonage. My 1859.
poor sister-in-law and Isabella are still in the old house; but pre- ^* 74-
paring to move into the cottage where my dear good old father
spent the latter years of his long life. Richard (my nephew)
and his wife and children expect to remove to the old parsonage
of Dent in the early part of next January. Is not this sad,
dull, home-spun stuff? But what better can you expect from
an old solitary Fellow of a College. I am now the oldest
Fellow in the University. Is it not a melancholy honour ?
The Master seems happy ; and his wife is a sweet-tempered,
courteous, right-minded person, whom we all of us love and
admire....
Ever your true-hearted old friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
At the ever memorable meeting to which Sedgwick here
alludes, held in the Senate House on All Saints Day, he spoke
last. He did not attempt to deal with the broader aspects
of the question, which had been eloquently handled by the
speakers who had preceded him ; but, taking a large map of
Africa, he traced the routes of previous explorers, and lastly,
that of Livingstone. No speech could have been better
suited to the occasion ; for it brought the subject down from
the vague regions of rhetoric to the firm ground of common
sense, and pointed out, clearly and practically, what had been
already accomplished, and what might still be done if Living-
stone were vigorously supported.
When Sedgwick came to the end of his lectures in
December, he was still in earnest about resignation, and
delivered another farewell lecture, for which, as in the
previous year, he prepared a rough draft " The state of the
Museum is the cause that keeps me here," he told his class ;
" I leave it as soon as the arrangements are more complete,
and next spring I hope to put the rocks in some order by
help of my young friends of the University." By this time
Barrett had left Cambridge, and a new scientific assistant,
232
356 DARWIN'S ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
1859. Mr H. G. Seeley, had taken his place. With his help the
* 74. wor k j n the Museum went merrily forward ; and Sedgwick
soon found that he had met with a skilful and hardworking
geologist, who could not only be trusted to arrange and
increase the collection, but who could occasionally take his
place in the lecture-room.
In November of this year Darwin published his essay
On the Origin of Species. One of the first copies was sent to
Sedgwick with the following letter :
DOWN, BROMLEY, KENT,
November \\th, 1859.
My dear Professor Sedgwick,
I have told Murray to send you a copy of my book On
the Origin of Species, which is as yet only an abstract. As the
conclusion at which I have arrived after an amount of work which is
not apparent in this condensed sketch, is so diametrically opposed
to that which you have often advocated with much force, you might
think that I send my volume to you out of a spirit of bravado and
with a want of respect, but I assure you that I am actuated by quite
opposite feelings. Pray believe me, my honoured friend,
Your sincerely obliged,
CHARLES DARWIN.
To Charles Darwin, Esq.
CAMBRIDGE, December i\th, 1859.
My dear Darwin,
I write to thank you for your work On the Origin
of Species..?
If I did not think you a good-tempered, and truth-loving
man, I should not tell you that (spite of the great knowledge,
store of facts, capital views of the correlation of the various
parts of organic nature, admirable hints about the diffusions,
through wide regions, of nearly related organic beings,
&c., &c.) I have read your book with more pain than
pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly, parts I laughed
at till my sides were almost sore ; other parts I read with
absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and
1 The omitted passages contain Sedgwick's reasons for not having acknow-
ledged the gift sooner. The whole letter is printed in Darwin's Life, ii. 247.
DARWIN'S ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 357
grievously mischievous. You have deserted after a start in 1859.
that tram-road of all solid physical truth the true method of ^t. 74.
induction, and started off in machinery as wild, I think,
as Bishop Wilkins's locomotive that was to sail with us to
the moon. Many of your wide conclusions are based upon
assumptions which can neither be proved nor disproved.
Why then express them in the language and arrangements
of philosophical induction ? As to your grand principle
natural selection what is it but a secondary consequence of
supposed, or known, primary facts ? Development is a better
word, because more close to the cause of the fact. For you
do not deny causation. I call (in the abstract) causation the
will of God ; and I can prove that He acts for the good of
His creatures. He also acts by laws which we can study
and comprehend. Acting by law, and under what is called
final cause, comprehends, I think, your whole principle.
You write of 'natural selection' as if it were done consciously
by the selecting agent. 'Tis but a consequence of the pre-
supposed development, and the subsequent battle for life.
This view of nature you have stated admirably, though
admitted by all naturalists and denied by no one of common
sense. We all admit development as a fact of history ; but
how came it about ? Here, in language, and still more in
logic, we are point-blank at issue. There is a moral or meta-
physical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who
denies this is deep in the mire of folly. 'Tis the crown and
glory of organic science that it does, through final cause, link
material to moral ; and yet does not allow us to mingle
them in our first conception of laws, and our classification
of such laws, whether we consider one side of nature or the
other. You have ignored this link ; and, if I do not mistake
your meaning, you have done your best in one or two preg-
nant cases to break it. Were it possible (which, thank God, it is
not) to break it, humanity, in my mind, would suffer a damage
that might brutalize it, and sink the human race into a lower
grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since
358 DARWIN* S ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
1859. its written records tell us of its history. Take the case of the
Et. 74. bee-cells. If your development produced the successive
modification of the bee and its cells (which no mortal can
prove), final cause would stand good as the directing cause
under which the successive generations acted and gradually
improved. Passages in your book, like that to which I have
alluded (and there are others almost as bad), greatly shocked
my moral taste. I think, in speculating on organic descent,
you over-state the evidence of geology ; and that you under-
state it while you are talking of the broken links of your
natural pedigree : but my paper is nearly done, and I must
go to my lecture-room. Lastly, then, I greatly dislike the con-
cluding chapter not as a summary, for in that light it appears
good but I dislike it from the tone of triumphant confidence
in which you appeal to the rising generation (in a tone I con-
demned in the author of the Vestiges] and prophesy of things
not yet in the womb of time, nor (if we are to trust the ac-
cumulated experience of human sense and the inferences
of its logic) ever likely to be found anywhere but in the fertile
womb of man's imagination.
And now to say a word about a son of a monkey and an
old friend of yours. I am better, far better, than I was last
year. I have been lecturing three days a week (formerly I
gave six a week) without much fatigue, but I find, by the loss
of activity and memory, and of all productive powers, that my
bodily frame is sinking slowly towards the earth. But I
have visions of the future. They are as much a part of
myself as my stomach and my heart, and these visions are to
have their antitype in solid fruition of what is best and greatest.
But on one condition only that I humbly accept God's
revelation of Himself both in His works and in His word,
and do my best to act in conformity with that knowledge
which He only can give me, and He only can sustain
me in doing. If you and I do all this, we shall meet in
heaven.
I have written in a hurry, and in a spirit of brotherly love.
LETTER FROM DARWIN. 359
Therefore forgive any sentence you happen to dislike ; and 1860.
believe me, spite of our disagreement on some points of the ^t. 75.
deepest moral interest, your true-hearted old friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
ILKLY WELLS HOUSE,
OTLEY, YORKSHIRE,
26 November, 1859.
My dear Professor Sedgwick,
I did not at all expect that you would have written to me.
You could not possibly have paid me a more honourable compliment
than in expressing freely your strong disapprobation of my book. I
fully expected it. I can only say that I have worked like a slave on
the subject for above twenty years, and am not conscious that bad
motives have influenced the conclusions at which I have arrived. I
grieve to have shocked a man whom I sincerely honour. But I do
not think you would wish anyone to conceal the results at which he
has arrived after he has worked, according to the best ability which
may be in him. I do not think my book will be mischievous ; for
there are so many workers that, if I be wrong I shall soon be
annihilated ; and surely you will agree that truth can be known only
by rising victorious from every attack.
I daresay I may have written too confidently from feeling so
confident of the truth of my main doctrine. I have made already a
few converts of good and tried naturalists, and oddly enough two of
them compliment me on my cautious mode of expression ! this will
make you laugh...
I have tried to be honest in giving all the many and grave
difficulties which occurred to me, or I met in published works. I
cannot think a false theory would explain so many classes of facts,
as the theory seems to me to do. But magna est veritas, and, thank
God, prcevalebit. Forgive me for scribbling at such length, and let
me say again how grieved I am to have encountered your severe
disapprobation and ridicule. Your kind and noble heart shews
itself throughout your letter. I thank you for writing, and remain,
with sincere respect,
Your truly obliged,
CHARLES DARWIN.
To Miss Gerard.
NORWICH, January 2nd, 1860.
"...I have read Darwin's book. It is clever, and calmly
written ; and therefore, the more mischievous, if its principles
be false; and I believe them utterly false. It is the system of
the author of the Vestiges stripped of his ignorant absurdities.
360 DARWIWS ORIGIN OF SPECIES.
1860. It repudiates all reasoning from final causes ; and seems to
t - 75- shut the door upon any view (however feeble) of the God of
Nature as manifested in His works. From first to last it is a
dish of rank materialism cleverly cooked and served up. As
a system of philosophy it is not like the Tower of Babel, so
daring in its high aim as to seek a shelter against God's
anger; but it is like a pyramid poised on its apex. It is a
system embracing all living nature, vegetable and animal;
yet contradicting point blank the vast treasury of facts
that the Author of Nature has, during the past two or three
thousand years, revealed to our senses. And why is this
done ? For no other solid reason, I am sure, except to make
us independent of a Creator..."
To Professor Owen.
CAMBRIDGE, Wednesday Morning [28 March, 1860].
My dear Owen,
...I want to pick your brains about 101 things.
About Darwin's theory, about Agassiz, about the Reptiles
in our (so-called) coprolite bed. By the way, I will send you
a copy of last week's Spectator. Near the end of it is a long
letter first sent to the Archbishop of Dublin 1 , assuredly without
any intention of its publication. But his Grace took on
himself the office of man-midwife, and delivered the said
brainchild to the office of The Spectator. The first publication
fell into the hands of the unknown Author ; who sent some
corrections etc., though the staple of the letter still remained,
word for word, as first written by him. For example ; in one
sentence the name of Owen appeared in the place of Oken,
and Pachyderms were called P achy demies* ! I want to learn
1 Richard Whately, D.D.
' J Sedgwick's letter appears in The Spectator, 24 March, 1860, p. 285, intro-
duced by the following sentence: ''The Archbishop of Dublin has received the
following remarks in answer to an inquiry he had made of a friend (eminent in
the world of science) on the subject of Darwin's theory of the origin of species."
It is reprinted, with considerable additions, " revised and corrected by the author "
in the same Journal, 7 April, 1860, p. 334. Darwin at once recognised that the
LETTER TO THE SPECTATOR. 361
your views about creation's law. It is clear that there has 1860.
been a law governing the succession of forms. But here, by ^ t> 75-
law, I mean order of succession, and not a law like that of
gravitation, out of which the actual movements of our system
follow by mechanical succession. In that sense I do not
believe in any law of creation. The highest point we can, I
think, ever reach is a law of succession of forms, each implying
a harmonious reference to an archetype, and each having
indications of the action of a final cause i.e. of intelligent
causation, or creation. My belief is : 1st, that Darwin has
deserted utterly the inductive track the narrow but sure
track of physical truth, and taken the broad way of hypo-
thesis, which has led him (spite of his great knowledge) into
great delusion ; and made him the advocate, instead of the
historian the teacher of error instead of the apostle of truth :
2nd, I think that (whether he intends it or not, or knows it or
not) he is a teacher of that which savours of rankest material-
ism, and of an utter rejection of the highest moral evidence,
and the highest moral truth. I must stop for want of room,
Ever yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
Sedgwick's letter in The Spectator was followed up at no
distant date by a direct public attack on The Origin of
Species. He made a communication to the Cambridge Philo-
sophical Society (7 May) : On the succession of organic forms
during long geological periods ; and on certain theories which
profess to account for the origin of new species. A careful
synopsis of the paper, or lecture, supplied by himself to The
Cambridge Chronicle, shews that the theory was attacked
wholly from the geological side, and declared to be a mere
article was by Sedgwick, and wrote : " I now feel certain that Sedgwick is the
author of the article in The Spectator. No one else could use such abusive terms.
And what a misrepresentation of my notions ! Any ignoramus would suppose that
I hadyfo/ broached the doctrine that the breaks between successive formations
marked long intervals of time. It is very unfair. But poor dear old Sedgwick
seems rabid on the question." Life of Darwin, ii. 297.
362 SSTS FOR BUST TO WOOLNER.
1860. hypothesis, at variance with the true inductive methods of
75- attaining truth. There was a full meeting of the Society, and
a lively discussion on the subject of the lecture ensued, in
which several leading members took part. Henslow, though
not a thorough-going partisan, defended Darwin ; and Pro-
fessor Clark, though disposed to agree in the main with
Sedgwick, did his best to impart a philosophical tone to the
discussion by suggesting that the theory ought to be classed
among those imperfect inductions which point the way to
truth. But the general sense of the meeting was unquestion-
ably, we have heard, on Sedgwick's side.
In March Sedgwick sat to Mr Woolner for the bust now
in the Library of Trinity College. He beguiled the hours of
sitting with general literature. " I amused myself with (and
sometimes swallowed like a glutton) pages of Chaucer, Milton,
Shakespeare, Dryden, and Pope. I read also a good many
pages of Cowley. And then I read Johnson's Life of Cowley,
one of the best of the Doctor's works. I think I have, at
different periods, read it a dozen times. And then I read
(for the third or fourth time) Walter Scott's very amusing and
very valuable Life of Dryden. I have amused myself also
with comparing, in choice passages, old Chaucer in his own
dress with the same passages done by Dryden into more
modern English, and greatly do I prefer the original in its
old-fashioned garb. When you come to me with your mother
next autumn, while I am residing at Norwich, I will write
out for you a series of comparative passages, with Chaucer's
spelling a little changed, and his words accented as they were
then sounded ; and I do think you will feel the exquisite
beauty of his writing. But the work entire will not do for a
lady to read, so full is it of gross impurity..,...! saw old
Wordsworth not very long before he died. He was above
eighty, I think, and in sorrow for the loss of his daughter,
when I joined him in a long walk, the last day I ever saw his
face. And one sentence I remember, not the very words, but
the thoughts he gave utterance to : 'Whatever men may say
LECTURE ON STRATA NEAR CAMBRIDGE. 363
or think of my poems, there is not, I trust, one line in them I 1860.
should now, in my old age, wish to blot out, because it was &* 75-
likely to injure the moral purity of my fellow-creatures.
Some men, alas ! have been the teachers of evil in their own
days, and in generations after them 1 .'"
A lecture, On the Strata near Cambridge, and tJte Fens of
the Bedford Level, delivered in the Town Hall (25 May) to
the members of the Working Men's College, and the Young
Men's Christian Association, was Sedgwick's next work. " It
was well received, and did not very much fatigue me," he
writes. Fortunately it was well reported, and he was there-
fore enabled to publish it, with a Supplement, and a plate of
sections, prepared for him by Mr Barrett. In June we find
him taking a short holiday in London, where the annual
exhibitions of pictures offered never-failing attractions.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
LONDON, June 2nd, 1860.
". . .1 turned in to see the Exhibition of the Royal Academy.
I did not like Landseer's picture of the Highland Flood any
better than I did before. It is clever in many of its details,
but its colour is dismal ; and why not relieve it by some
gleams of broken light, which would have been quite natural
during a tempest ? Still it is, in many respects, a great
picture, and no one else could so well have painted the dead
and dying cattle, etc. Millais' Black Brunswicker is ad-
mirably painted, but it is as stiff as a poker. He has very
great power if he would use it well ; but all the pre-Raphaelites
are a set of coxcombs. I wish he would set to work to paint
a Quaker wedding. How well he would bring out the stiff
dresses and rigid features of that honest sect, who, in spite of
forms, have become such buckram formalists....
The pre-Raphaelite Hunt's famous picture of Christ dis-
cussing with the Doctors in the Temple is stiff, formal, but
exquisitely painted. Some of the Jewish doctors are
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 16 April, 1860.
364 HONORARY DEGREE AT OXFORD.
1860. strikingly conceived, but they do look very Jewish. The
* 75- figure and countenance of the young Saviour displease me.
Mary, who has just found her lost son, is pleasing and calm,
yet earnest. Joseph is without meaning a very insipid Jew.
The architecture is fanciful, and the whole effect looks too like
a Japanese enamel. In an upper room were two pictures by
Rosa Bonheur. The group of Highland cattle is quite glorious.
A group of Spanish muleteers crossing a pass of the Pyrenees
is also very good....
I then visited the French exhibition. There were one or
two good pictures relating to scenes at Paris during the Reign
of Terror; but there was a picture of two Sisters of Charity,
dressed in costume, and of the size of life one with a sick
child in her lap, and the other mixing a prescription which
had such deep and touching interest that I could look at
nothing else while I was in the room. There was nothing of
strain or trick about it. The calm tenderness of the nursing
nun, and the beauty of the poor sick child, were quite
heavenly. The colouring is very pleasing, but slight. I do
not know what the artists say about it ; but I do know what
I felt ; and I mean to see it again once more before I leave
London...."
The British Association met this year at Oxford, and
Sedgwick not only went, but presided over the Geological
Section. He was the guest of Professor Phillips an old and
tried friend who took such care of him that in spite of
bad weather, gout, and other ailments, he went through the
whole meeting, with its varied engagements, social as well as
scientific, without much difficulty, and could speak of himself
at the end as being still ''fresh as a lark." The University
selected him, among others, for the honorary degree of Doctor
of Civil Law. " I was very well received," he writes, " The
cheering was very general and very loud, when I was pre-
sented to the Vice-Chancellor 1 ."
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, i July, 1860.
ENTERTAINS MRS LIVINGSTONE. 365
In the Michaelmas Term he lectured as usual. "I had an 1861.
enormous class," he writes, " including a good many ladies. rEt - 1
My lectures now fatigue me, and I have not yet quite re-
covered from the lassitude of this morning's work in my
Museum 1 ."
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, February i$th, 1861.
u ...Mrs Livingstone is now on a visit to a clergyman at
Barnwell. I could not go to Barnwell to call upon her, and I
cannot stand a dinner-party without the risk of a very severe
punishment. But I cooked up a lunch-party ; and yesterday
we mustered sixteen at my table in the inner room.
Mrs Livingstone is just what you would expect in the wife
of a missionary who during many a long year had refused no
kind of labour while she was toiling with her husband in
works of love among the poor Africans, far away from any
one who knew the sounds of her native tongue. She is plain
and simple in manners, and (like her husband) does not seem to
think that she has done anything remarkable or deserving of
high praise. The Master of St John's College and his wife,
and Miss Burns, granddaughter of that glorious lover of rural
song that heaven-born poet of Scotland were of the party.
And I mustered two Divinity Professors and their ladies, and
several other members of the University who had known
Dr Livingstone, and were supporters of the African Mission
from Cambridge. We were all of one mind, and all of us
right glad to meet the heroic Christian lady. No ! I will not
say lady, but woman, which is a far dearer name. Every one
seemed quite happy, and we had much cheerful talk. Before
we adjourned to my first room I made a bit of a speech. I
thanked them for coming on so short a notice ; told them
how happy I was to have at my right hand such an heroic
Christian sister, in meeting whom they all felt a happiness
like mine ; that persons who had braved the greatest dangers,
1 To Mrs Martin, 7 November,
366 ENTERTAINS MRS LIVINGSTONE.
1861. and done the best and greatest deeds, were often of very quiet
* 7 6 - and simple manners as I had myself twice remarked when I
was sitting by the side of the Duke of Wellington ; that
I had another great pleasure in seeing at my table the
granddaughter of that great poet of Scotland, whose strains
reach the heart of every man and woman who had a soul
to apprehend and a heart to feel ; that by a happy accident
all these joys had come together on the poetic day of love
the day of Valentine ; that I trusted we were enjoying a full
bumper of true Christian love, etc. etc. And I concluded by
proposing the health of Dr Livingstone, and success to his
Christian labours, and calling on them to pray with earnest
hearts that the God who had shielded him in so many
dangers would shield him still, and after his pious task
was done, bring him back in safety to his native land, that he
might spend the evening of his life in peace and honour
among those whom he best loved in this world. This health
was drunk honestly and heartily. We then adjourned to my
working-room, and had a pleasant chat till nearly four, when
they went away. A few minutes afterwards came the Porter
round with the afternoon letters. What do you think ? In
them were three valentines ! I wish they had come sooner,
as they would have made a laugh at the close of my happy
party...."
To the same.
February 26^, 1861.
"...Yesterday evening, under most formidable wrappers,
I was obliged to go to the meeting of the Philosophical
Society. For I had to make a motion, on the part of the
Society, to invite the British Association to Cambridge in
1862. There was no need of a long speech. The question
was a simple one, and we were of one mind ; and I was happy
to be the ostensible leader in the invitation, and to accept the
leadership of the deputation 1 ..."
1 The deputation consisted of Professor Sedgwick, Professor Adams, Mr
Babington, and Professor Liveing,
SEDGWICK^ S AMERICAN COUSINS. 367
To the same. l86l>
April \st, 1 86 1. 7~-
"...I am, thank God, far better than I was. My cold
is almost gone perhaps I might say quite gone. But sleep-
less nights, ill-temper, and a tendency to giddiness are the
attendants of my present life and ugly companions they are.
Yesterday I preached in Chapel, and I had a very attentive
congregation. When the service was over, I was very much
fatigued ; but I recovered after a long rest in my arm-chair,
and dined in Hall. I had not dined there for several weeks.
I also attended evening Chapel. Handel's famous Easter
anthem was sung, but the present state of my ears sadly
spoils my enjoyment of such noble music...."
We must now say a few words respecting the American
Sedgwicks. In or about 1635 a certain Robert Sedgwick
emigrated to the United States. He had been in the
English army, and soon exhibited such military talents in
organizing the troops at Charleston, Massachusetts, and in
conducting an expedition against the French, that he was
promoted by Cromwell to be one of the commissioners
for the government of Jamaica, where he died in 1656*.
His widow returned to England, but one at least of his
sons remained in America; and in 1748 we find his
great-grandson, Benjamin, settled in Connecticut. Through
his sons, Theodore and John, the family divided into two
branches. "Theodore was a man of great eminence in the
legal profession, and of high standing as a public man a
member of each House of Congress, and Speaker of the
House of Representatives. For the last ten years of his
life, which terminated in February, 1813, he was a Judge
of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts 2 ." Sedgwick's first
1 A Genealogical Dictionary of the first settlers of New England, by James
Savage, 4 vols. 8vo. Boston, 1 862 : article Sedgwick. See also History of Charleston,
Mass. By Rich. Frothingham, Jr. Svo. Charleston and Boston, 1845, pp.
I35-I39-
2 From C. F. Sedgwick, 24 September, 1845.
368 SEDG WICK'S AMERICAN COUSINS.
i86r. acquaintance in the family was his son, also named Theodore,
i. 76. brother to Catharine Sedgwick, the well-known authoress.
He came to England in 1837, and visited Sedgwick, but no
record of the meeting has been preserved.
The regular correspondence began in 1839, with a letter
from a representative of the other branch, Charles F. Sedg-
.wick, commonly called General Sedgwick, because he had
held a commission as Major-General in the militia of Connec-
ticut, grandson to the above-mentioned John Sedgwick. He
was fond of antiquarian pursuits, and asked some questions
about the origin of the family. Sedgwick's reply was shewn
to his correspondent's cousins, and they in turn desired to
become better acquainted with the writer. " Our whole
family here," the General wrote, " is exceedingly clannish.
We are few in number, and we all entertain very strong
feelings of attachment and affection for each other, and for
all in your country who bear the name. I have shewn your
letters to Miss Sedgwick, and she appeared to receive the
commendatory notice which you took of her works as coming
from a brother, whose good opinion she most highly prized V
The General's youngest son, born in 1845, was called Robert
Adam, " the first name in honour of the common progenitor
of our family, and the other in testimony of our high respect
for Professor Sedgwick 2 ."
The correspondence, begun as above stated in 1839, was
continued in annual letters, by which the writers were made
acquainted with the details of each other's family history,
daily life, and opinions on political and social questions.
In fact, Sedgwick became as intimate with the General, and
to a certain extent with Miss Sedgwick also, as people
can become who never meet. He resisted all efforts to
persuade him to cross the Atlantic, though nearly every
letter contains a pressing invitation, and promise of a warm
welcome. " Were I a man of fortune and leisure," he wrote
1 From General Sedgwick, 3 May, 1845. 2 Ibid.
SEDGWICK^S AMERICAN COUSINS. 369
to Miss Sedgwick in 1853, "I should not long hesitate in 1861.
responding in person to such kind words nothing doubting ^t. 76.
about my welcome in your hospitable land ; and I should like
to see, in its youth, that country which bids fair to become
the most powerful confederation of free men upon the whole
face of the earth. But for the great moral blot in your
Southern States, your giant strength would, in a very few
years, out-match any European combination that could be
brought against it. Your national sins are your national
weakness ; and 'tis well that it is so ordered. Were it not so,
how could we say that in the physical and moral laws of
nature, God had shewn Himself a moral governor of the world,
and a hater of sin ? But for this one dismal blot the United
States would very, very soon, be far too strong for the nations
of the old world."
In the spring of 1861 Miss Sedgwick wrote to say that
her grandniece, Miss Susan Ridley Sedgwick, granddaughter
of her brother Theodore, was about to visit England with her
aunt, Miss Ashburner. Theodore Sedgwick had married
a Miss Ridley, who claimed to be of the same stock as the
martyr-Bishop. There was therefore a double reason for the
visit to Cambridge, to see her cousin, and her ancestor's
college, portrait, etc. Sedgwick was out of health and in
bad spirits, but he promptly wrote and begged them to come ;
and when the visit took place he exerted himself to the
utmost to shew them Cambridge and Ely. A few days
afterwards he wrote : " I think it a very great gain that
whenever I may hereafter write to any of my American
friends whom I have never seen I may think of you whom I
have seen ; and that will give a better life to my letters. For
I think of you now, and I hope to do so as long as my old
age is lengthened out, as my dear friend and my sweet
American cousin. May God ever love and bless you 1 !"
Some months later Miss Sedgwick sent him the following
letter :
1 To Miss S. R. Sedgwick, i April, 1861.
s. ii. 24
370 LETTER FROM CATHERINE S EDO WICK.
STOCKBRIDGE, November igth, 1861.
JEt. 76. My dear and honoured cousin and friend,
It is a long time since I have had any direct communica-
tion with you, and yet I rejoice in believing that during the past
year our relations have been most pleasantly extended, and our
sympathies multiplied. Your name has become more familiar in our
households since my friend Anne Ashburner and my dear niece have
entered into the circle of your family lovers. They cherish the
most happy and grateful memories of their visit to you, and my
sister, Susan's grandmother, begs me to repeat her sense of your
kindness.... You have made us all love you.
We have been gratified by the warm interest you have expressed
in the condition of our country. We could not doubt that you felt
it, but we have been so much surprised and disappointed by the
general tone of English sentiment in relation to us that our faith in
our Anglo-Saxon kindred has been a good deal disturbed. And
what most amazes us is the ignorance of our government that
is betrayed in the declaration, constantly repeated, that we are
fighting for nothing We had fondly thought some of us that no
English head could fail to comprehend, no English heart be slow to
feel, the necessity of supporting such a government as ours, and
maintaining the glorious institutions bequeathed to us by our fathers.
And that we did understand and value them is well proven by the
uprising of the North, banded together as one man. . . .
A relative of yours not your correspondent but his nephew-
commands a brigade in M c Lellans army. He was trained a soldier,
was in the Mexican service, and is said to be one of our very best
generals 1 . A nephew of mine, a son of my beloved brother Charles, is
his aid 2 . It pleases me that in any emergency they will stand shoulder
to shoulder, for both are true-hearted, and kindred-loving men....
But I leave this all-absorbing subject to tell you how desirous we
are to hear of your welfare that you keep gout and dizziness at bay
and how grateful we are for every particular of your domestic life and
enjoyment. My love to all my dear cousins, and tell them to believe
the good northern stock will show blood ! God bless and preserve you.
Yours gratefully and affectionately,
C. M. SEDGWICK.
To Mrs Barnard (Miss Henslow).
CAMBRIDGE, April iStfr, 1861.
My dearest Annie,
I am again forgetting that you are not now a
1 General John Sedgwick, killed at the battle of Spottsylvania, in May, 1864.
His character and military distinctions are stated at length in Personal Memoirs of
U. S. Grant, i vols. 8vo. New York, 1886, ii. 220, 540.
2 William Dwight Sedgwick, wounded at the battle of Antietam, 17 September,
1862, died 2 9 September. A life of him is given in Harvard Memorial Biographies,
2 vols. 8vo. Cambridge (Mass.), 1867, i, 167 176.
LAST VISIT TO HENSLOW. 371
child, but a wife and a mamma. May God bless you and all 1861.
whom you best love ! My old hand so shakes that I can ^t- 7
hardly hold my pen, and Dr Paget has commanded me again
and again to write no letters. So I must be short; and I shall
have the double pleasure of writing to my dear god-daughter,
and of breaking the doctor's orders.
On Saturday last I went to see your dear father. He was
calm, resigned, and quite happy. Though under bodily
suffering he was full of peace and love. I never saw and
conversed with a human being (and I have watched some
pious Christian death-beds) whose soul was nearer heaven.
He sometimes prayed, he said, to be set at liberty, but not,
he hoped, impatiently; and he constantly prayed that his God
and Saviour would support him in his last moments. I often
repeat, he added, the words of our Burial Service : f Suffer
me not, in my last hour, for any pain of death, to fall from
thee.' Though emaciated, and with a white beard (for they
do not tease him with shaving), he looks like himself. He has
his own sweet natural expression. His looks are the looks of
hope and peace and Christian love. When I first saw him I
was not shocked, because he looked so calm and happy ; but
I was moved and deeply affected, and I stooped down and
kissed his cheek, and he grasped my hand and thanked me.
He then said to Dr Hooker: 'Interpret for me; my voice is
feeble, and Sedgwick is deaf So we began in that way for
a sentence or two. ' No,' I said, 'we can do better than that/
So I knelt down, and put my face close to his, and he put his
right arm round my neck, and in that position we had our
loving talk together.
The doctors say there is no hope of recovery whatever;
but he is still strong and has not at all the look of a man at
the point of death. If I were to trust my own judgment, I
should say that he might live some weeks yet, and but for the
doctors (who ought to know best) I should still have some
hopes of his restoration to better health
I ate lunch with them below-stairs ; and then again I took
242
372 LAST VISIT TO HENSLOW.
1861. my place on my knees by my beloved friend's bedside 1 .
M\.. 76. After I had done so he asked your sister to bring a pillow for
me to kneel upon. Was not that just like your dear father ?
I remained almost a quarter of an hour, and then the post-
chaise that was to take me to Bury St Edmunds drove to the
door. I then took a tender leave of the dear party ; and, if
your papa's life be lengthened, I mean to go again to see him.
I am suffering by gout, and by attacks of giddiness. This
day week when my man came in the morning he found me
lying on the floor and unable to rise. The fit came on by a
strong dose of over-stimulating gout-medicine which got into
my head. Since then Paget has set me almost right again ;
and now see how I have broken his positive orders! Give my
kind remembrances to the Major.
Ever your loving godfather,
A. SEDGWICK.
Sedgwick divided the summer between visits to the seaside,
to Yorkshire, and to various friends. Among the latter was
the lady whom he had known at Norwich in 1836 as Miss
Caroline Clarke *, and who now had become the wife of Canon
Guthrie of Bristol. "I count it as one of the blessings of my
old age," he wrote, " that I have been again established as her
dear friend and frequent correspondent, after an interruption
of a quarter of a century, during full twenty years of which I
had lost sight of her, and did not even know her name 3 ." The
next extract describes her in her new surroundings :
To Mrs Cooper.
DORSET HOUSE, CLIFTON, July 26t/i, 1861.
"...Mrs Guthrie (once the bright, pretty, and rather eccen-
tric Caroline Clarke of Norwich) is, and long has been, one
1 In another account of this visit Sedgwick says : "I declare that while kneeling
by his bedside with his arm clasped round my neck I felt as if I had been in the
presence of an angel." Henslow lingered for nearly a month after this visit. He
died 1 6 May, 1861.
2 Vol. i. pp. 453457.
3 To Miss Fanny Hicks, 22 December, 1862.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT MANCHESTER. 373
of the best and most benevolent of womankind. She is still 1861.
(though no longer young) lively, winning in manner, and ^ ?
of a very agreeable countenance. She is very clever; has a
wonderful administrative skill ; and a benevolence that leads
her to devote a large fortune, and all the powers of her bodily
frame, to the good and relief of her suffering fellow-creatures.
I visited her institutions at Calne infant-schools, boys and
girls schools ; young women's schools of domestic economy
(such as cooking, washing, and doing work to fit them to be
wives or servants) ; hospitals, etc. And in a day or two I
hope to go over the great hospital at Bristol where she super-
intends the nursing. For practical good I never knew her
match...."
In September Sedgwick attended the meeting of the
British Association at Manchester. He was one of the Vice
Presidents of the Geological Section, of which Murchison
was President. The occasion seemed propitious for bringing
about some sort of reconciliation. "But what did he do?"
writes Murchison to Whewell ; " whilst I made every effort to
induce him to attend the Geological Section, to which I read
a discourse so prepared that I really thought it would greatly
tend to propitiate him, he never came but once, for a short
time, and made a point of attending the Geographical
regularly!" In the course of one of the discussions Mur-
chison quoted the Geological Surveyors as on his side.
Sedgwick replied, very excitedly : " Of course they are.
They have been badly instructed and badly led, and it is no
wonder that they have adopted your erroneous views."
In the Michaelmas term he began his lectures with
every intention to go through with them as usual, though at
times he despaired of his ability. But he had overestimated
his strength. " I gave my opening lecture," he writes, " but
it was too much for me. Then for more than a fortnight my
assistant in the Museum lectured for me." Under these
circumstances he returned to his former resolution to
resign.
374 LAST LECTURE.
1 86 1. To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
*-. 7 6 - CAMBRIDGE, November loth, 1861.
"...I finished my lectures yesterday; and gave the last I
shall ever give as Wood ward ian Professor. The thought was
sorrowful ; but I have had warnings plenty, and it is time for
me to strike after a service of nearly forty-four years. I
had a large audience ; and when I sat down I was greeted by
loud and long-continued hearty cheers 1 . So far so good.
Romilly comes every morning before breakfast to help me
with my letters. He is the oldest friend I have in Cambridge,
and the kindest. He has a great deal of French blood in his
veins, which makes him a merry, genial, man ; and to such
natural gifts he has added a vast store of literature ; and,
better still, he has a heart filled with Christian love, and
cheered with Christian hope. He is in many respects more
infirm than I am. Indeed, were it not for my head, I should
be now a strong man for my years. 'Tis strange, but writing an
off-hand letter like this tires my head far more than lecturing."
To the same.
Sunday Evening, December 15^, 1861.
" Before this reaches you, you will have heard the melan-
choly news which will fill the heart of every good English-
man with sorrow. The wise, the good Prince Albert is gone.
So fleeting are all earthly joys! So fades all earthly glory!
It did seem strange to-day to hear the well-known prayers
repeated without the sound of Prince Albert's name. He
was, I believe, wise and good in a position of great difficulty.
God's will be done ! but I am very sorrowful, and have often
had my eyes filled with tears...."
To the same.
CAMBRIDGE, February ith, 1862.
"...The day before yesterday a railway porter tapped at
my door with a parcel in the shape of a large roll neatly
1 Mr Romilly records (9 December): "Went to Sedgwick's concluding
lecture. He was in great force, but his feelings rather overcame him in taking
leave. This lecture lasted nearly two hours. "
DEATH OF PRINCE ALBERT. 375
packed in glazed black leather. After taking off the
cover I saw a sheet with a very broad black border, and ^Et. 77.
inside of it were these words : ' By Command of Her Majesty
the Queen. In Memoriam. Osborne, January, 1862.' And
then followed two large lithographic drawings of the Queen
and Prince Albert that of the Prince a most excellent
likeness. When I had gazed at those two portraits, side by
side, for a few seconds, I sat down and wept like a child. I
do not think, my darling, that you will be surprised at this.
We are bound to love and honour our Sovereign ; and were
she not our Queen we should naturally love and honour any
woman of such beautiful, loving, and consistent, domestic life.
And more than all this she is now weighed down by the most
grievous domestic affliction that could befall a tender-hearted
woman. And what a glorious example the Prince set to all
right-minded Englishmen ! He was a man of an astonishing
range of information. On the subjects he had handled (and
there were few subjects of literary, scientific, artistic, and
economical interest which he had not studied well) he was
never superficial. His knowledge was not merely extensive,
but profound. He had almost incredible industry ; and I have
often remarked that wherever he was he was sure to be
gaining information. And with all such powers he, by God's
grace and gift, united great benevolence, and wisdom, and
love of truth. And to all these gifts he added sweet
manners and a noble presence. He was called proud and
reserved. I never found him so. He always treated me as if
I were his equal ; and encouraged me to speak frankly to
him, just as if he had been my personal friend and equal...."
A week later Sedgwick proposed one of the resolutions at
a meeting held in the hall of Queens' College (14 February)
for the purpose of considering the erection in Cambridge of
some appropriate memorial to the late Chancellor. He was
ill, and "in terror of a fit of giddiness;" but we remember
that he spoke with eloquence and deep feeling, and made a
376 CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.
1862. profound impression on his hearers by recounting, in his most
Et - 77- graphic and picturesque style, a number of details about the
Prince which he had observed during his frequent interviews
with him. The speech was, in fact, an amplification of the
last letter.
To General Sedgwick.
February 21 st, 1862.
"...You complain, it may be with reason, of our Press.
But is your Press to escape without remark or censure ?
I have, within the last five or six months, read frequent
extracts from your journals, and many of them have been
written in a temper which seemed to me perfectly demoni-
acal and frantic. I do admire the spirit which has led the
Northern States to turn out their whole national strength
in vindication of what they believe to be their country's
rights. I know of nothing like it in modern history except
the tremendous strength put forth in the early days of the
French Republic. It was at first defensive, and so far as it
was defensive, it was, I think glorious. It then became
fiercely aggressive under the mask of liberty, and soon passed
into a despotism. The course was natural, if we are to trust
the teaching of history. God grant that our cousins in
America may not founder on this rock ! I often thought,
before the civil war began, that the fierce, intolerant, vain-
glorious, ravings of your ultra-democratic press, were a
prelude to a decay of true rational and enduring liberty. In
regard to the ultimate event of the war, I am not so vain as
to enter on any speculation. I did expect when the contest
between the Northern and Southern States began, that the
Northern States would bear down the Southern without any
difficulty that they would proclaim, if not immediate, at least
prospective freedom to the slave population and that they
would begin by abrogating all laws which recognize slaves as
permanent property to be maintained, now and prospec-
tively, as a national institution. But you have cast away
CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA. 377
this vast advantage (moral as well as physical) to the dogs. 1862.
Your statesmen recalled Fremont (regarded by us as a man ^ 77-
of wisdom, courage, and high principle); you have been
committed to the maintenance of the degrading cruel insti-
tution of domestic slavery, and thereby thrown a dark shade
over the brightness of your great country. With such facts
before them, good Englishmen find it hard to believe that the
Northern States are God's noble champions in the cause of
rational liberty and Christian freedom ; and I know many
sober-minded men who contend (and I think, believe) that the
mitigation of the evils of slavery, and its ultimate abolition,
would be more speedily secured by the victory of the South-
ern States rather than by the triumph of the Northern. You
may call this paradoxical ; and I am not now stating my own
opinions, but it is upheld by very plausible arguments I can
hardly so much as allude to. If you trample down the
Confederate States, and keep a promise to which your govern-
ment is formally pledged, we shall then see a mighty Republic,
with a vast military strength, with slavery as one of its accepted
institutions, and with a spirit of aggressiveness which may
and will lead it to trample over its neighbours' rights, and to
spread domestic slavery over the lands of Christian freedom..."
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, March \2th, 1862.
"...This morning came Edleston 1 and told me that Fisher 2
breathed his last yesterday. The news did not surprise
me; but it is a solemn thing to hear that one with whom
we have lived familiarly, and spent many pleasant and social
hours, has been called away. Few, very few, of my old
friends are now left. But God has been very merciful to me,
and I still have a heart to feel brotherly love, and to rejoice
in the society of generations below my antiquated date...."
1 Rev. Joseph Edleston, one of the Senior Fellows of Trinity College, now
Vicar of Gainford.
2 Rev. John Hutton Fisher, B.A. 1818, Fellow of Trinity College and Vicar of
Kirkby Lonsdale.
378 ROSSALL SCHOOL.
1862. The next letter is of value as showing Sedgwick's kind
t- 77- interest in young people. The writer, then senior boy at
Rossall School 1 , having heard a rumour that Sedgwick was
staying at the neighbouring town of Blackpool, had asked
him to pay a visit to the school, with a broad hint that
he might perhaps get a half-holiday granted to the boys in
honour of the occasion. Sedgwick not only answered the
boy's letter; but wrote to the head-master and obtained
the desired half-holiday.
To John Amphlett Evans, Esq.
CAMBRIDGE, February 26tk, 1862.
Dear Sir,
I could not reply to your kind note before this
evening, as I only received it by this morning's post. I have
not been at Blackpool this winter, or any nearer to it than I
am at this moment. But I am glad the mistake was made,
as it has procured me the pleasure and amusement of reading
your letter of last Saturday. I most heartily sympathise
with you all, and right glad I should be if I could procure
you a joyful and happy holiday. And why should not this
wish, recorded in writing, and sent by the post, be as effectual
as a similar wish rising from the heart, and expressed by the
lips ? But alas ! it is far easier, in many cases, to ask questions
than to answer them. This question is so difficult that it
requires a Master's mind to settle it satisfactorily.
You have obtained an honourable position in the excellent
school of Rossall ; and I trust that your whole course of life
will be in conformity with such a good beginning. Labour is
the condition of humanity ; whatever you do (so long as it is
right and virtuous) do it with all your heart. Be active in
play, and be strenuous in study. Half the mischiefs in life
arise out of lounging and listlessness. In such a temper the
bad and insubordinate passions are sure to germinate.
1 Sedgwick had visited Rossall School on a public occasion, and had spoken
of it in very enthusiastic language.
REMAINS OF MRS TRENCH. 379
My servant is waiting to carry this note to the post. So I 1862.
must conclude, with good wishes to you, and all your brother- &* 77-
students. By asking a favour of me you have treated me as
a friend ; and I have answered you in like spirit.
Very faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Dean Trench.
CAMBRIDGE, April 2ist, 1862.
My dear Mr Dean,
I should do wrong if I asked you to answer
this letter, for at this time letters must be falling around
you like autumnal leaves. Letter-writing fatigues me, and
often disturbs my head, which is liable to very distressing
attacks of giddiness ; but I cannot help writing to you now
to express my heart's thanks for the happiness you have given
me by publishing the Remains and Letters* of your dear
mother. I never had the honour and blessing of knowing
her. Till the little publication from her journals, which you
so kindly sent me last year, I had never heard of her. But
from this time forward, and so long as old England has a
good name among the nations of the earth, she will take her
place as one of the most honoured daughters of our island,
and be cherished in the heart and remembrance of tens of
thousands. Yours must be a goodly triumph, or rather a
holy joy, thus to bring the memory of your beloved mother
before the world ; through her works to bring her again
before us ; to teach us lessons of taste, and love, and daily
wisdom ; to make her our sweetest and best instructor. I
only speak the truth when I say, that, since the old bright
days when I was driven almost wild by the early works
of Walter Scott, I have not received such joy as I found
while I was reading through your volume. It gave me a
kind of new life ; and (spite of old age, and the long weary
drag of spring gout, and sleepless nights, and a torpid brain)
1 The Remains of the late Mrs Richard Trench, being Selections from her
Journals, Letters, and other Papers, 8vo. London, 1862.
380 REMAINS OF MRS TRENCH.
1862. I went on with it, with senses as wide awake as in my youthful
* 77- days ; and with new springing delights, which never tired, but
became the stronger in each succeeding page. The exquisite,
elastic, woman's step ; the careless colloquial charms ; the
nice taste ; the speaking pictures ; the kindness ; the wisdom ;
the exquisite sauce piquante, kept down by good taste, and not
offending against the law of love ; the visions of fireside
happiness ; the blessings of domestic love, all radiant in
sunshine; the clouds of sorrow; little Fred and Bessie
glowing like Raphael's angels on the canvass, and then shut
out from the mother's sight by a dark cloud with which God
enshrouded them ; such, I need not tell you, were the visions
conjured up by your late mother's magical pen. Many
passages I read with earnest attention ; many made me laugh
with a right happy heart's movement. And there were some,
written in the simplicity of maternal sorrow, which affected
me with deep emotion ; yes, and made me glad to find that
the fountain-head of kind feeling is not yet dried up within
me. Again, it was to me a great charm to have described
from sight, and by such a delicate, and most graphic, woman's
pen, some of the persons whose frown made nations tremble,
and whose deeds rang in my schoolboy ears as if the actors
had been creatures of another world. There is another charm
which must make the volume a double treasure to the hearts
of those who are most near and dear to you. Your mother
never was tainted by infidelity ; but while, in her days of
youthful beauty, she was carried round in a whirl of gay
engagements, she probably thought little of religion beyond
the decency of its external forms. But sorrow was her teacher.
There are, I think, several passages where she alludes to the
great good to be drawn from such lessons. Whatever may
have been the lessons, she, by God's grace, learnt to profit by
them, and there is a mellowness and sanctity of character in
the productions of her later years, which (in addition to their
extraordinary nicety of judgment and brightness of taste)
must make them very precious to you. Perhaps I am wrong
REMAINS OF MRS TRENCH. 381
in troubling you at such length ; but I think you will forgive 1862.
me if you do me the bare justice of believing that I am &* 77-
writing honestly; and you will pardon the garrulity when you
remember that I am now working my way through my
seventy-eighth year... I must now needs stop for want of
room. With heartfelt good wishes and honest congratulations
I remain, my dear Dean, truly and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
From the Dean of Westminster.
WESTMINSTER, April 24^, 1862.
My dear Professor Sedgwick,
I cannot say to you, how much delight your delight
in my dear mother's book gave me. Of all the letters which I have
received about it, and they have been many, there has not been one
which has given me at all so much pleasure, except perhaps an
enthusiastic one from kind old Lord Lansdowne, and, as his dwelt
more on the literary charms of the book than on those higher [qualities]
which you have found in it, even that must give place to yours.
I indeed heartily thank you for your words of sympathy and
approval.
The preparation of the work cost me many many anxious hours
whether I was keeping back too much, or laying bare too much
but such words as yours give me assurance that in the latter respect,
at any rate, I have not exceeded, and I receive them with deep and
heart-felt pleasure.
Believe me ever, dear Professor Sedgwick,
Your very faithful and obliged,
R. C. TRENCH.
To the Master of Trinity College.
DENT, May \6th, 1862.
My dear Master,
...I am unhappy about the office I now fill. I
ought not to fill any office of which I do not perform the
duties. I have frequently mentioned this before. Martin 1
never grudged to do my duties ; but, now that he is no
longer Bursar, he would, if the College authorities appointed
him, fill the office of Vice-Master admirably no longer as an
act of good-will, but of personal right. I mentioned this to
him, and he said that I had, at any rate, better continue
1 Rev. Francis Martin, B. A. 1824, one of the Senior Fellows of Trinity College.
382 INTERVIEW WITH THE QUEEN.
1862. to hold the office till the meeting of the British Association
Et 77- was over. On the whole, considering the lingering infirmities
of my head, I shall be much better (should I attend the
meeting) without the responsibility of any official duties ;
and I shall consider it as personally kind to me, if you will
declare my office vacant...
Ever truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
In May Sedgwick was summoned to Yorkshire by the
serious illness of his niece. When she was well enough to be
moved he went with her and her mother to Blackpool on
the Lancashire coast a watering-place which he always
thoroughly enjoyed. There she slowly recovered, and he also
submitted to medical treatment, though he protested that his
"old, hypochondriacal, half-gouty, half-crazy system," was
almost beyond the reach of medicine. Under these circum-
stances he felt compelled to forego the pleasure of seeing the
Duke of Devonshire whose election as Chancellor he had
done all in his power to promote preside at the Public Com-
mencement in June. " With much reluctance," he wrote to
Dr Whewell, " with much sorrow, I am compelled to consider
myself unfit for the meeting." He remained at Blackpool until
he received the Queen's commands to visit her at Windsor.
To tJie Master of Trinity College.
BLACKPOOL, June 17^, 1862.
"...I went to Windsor Castle last Thursday, and had a long
and most touching interview with the Queen. I came away
most deeply impressed by the solemnity, I ought to say
sanctity, of her sorrow ; by her beautiful self-possession ; by
her large views of her duties ; by the great expansion of her
love and good-will to her fellow-creatures and subjects ; and
by the firmness of her faith. She said that she wished to see
me again on Friday, before I left the Castle : but she was,
that morning, ill and out of spirits so General Grey told me.
She told the Princess Alice to meet me, and she wished me
RESIGNS VICE-MASTERSHIP. 383
to see her two youngest boys. You will believe me when I 1862.
say that I was very deeply touched and moved by the inter- &*. 77.
view...."
On Sedgwick's first appearance in Cambridge after this
interview a lady said to him : " You have been to Court,
Professor, since I saw you last." " No Madam," he replied,
" I have not been to Court ; I have been to see a Christian
woman in her affliction."
To the same.
NORWICH, September 2$rd, 1862.
My dear Master,
Your letter requires an early reply. I thank you
heartily for its kind expressions, but the opinion I have so
deliberately formed is not shaken. I wish to resign the office
of Vice-Master because I know that I am unfit for the place.
My frequent infirmity of health very often prevents me,
absolutely, from doing its duties. When I attend in Hall and
the Combination Room I am often so deaf that I cannot join
in the conversation, without inflicting misery on my next
neighbour ; and the attendance in the Combination Room
very often worries my nerves and makes me ill. I have no
right this is a conviction of my conscience to receive the
emoluments, and to have the honour of an office of which
I know that I cannot do the duties as they ought to be
done. Now that I am working my way through the eighth
year of my eighth decade, there is no shadow of hope that
during the remnant of life, whatever it may be, I shall be
better able to do my duties to the College than I have done
them during the past years, while many infirmities of mind
and body have been gathering round me. With all good will
to the College, and the blessing of a grateful heart on the
Master and all my brother-Fellows, I must beg leave to
resign the office of Vice-Master. I remain, my dear Master,
Ever truly yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
384 BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT CAMBRIDGE.
1862. The British Association met at Cambridge in the first
* 77- week of October. Sedgwick's letters shew that his interest in
its proceedings was as keen as ever, though his bodily in-
firmities would not allow him to play more than a subordinate
part in them. " On Thursday," he writes, |( I was very gouty;
but I attended the sections. I did not attend the evening
meeting. On Friday I was better. Joined in the discussions.
A great dinner in our Hall, at which I was called on twice to
speak. Yesterday (partly to avoid my friends) I went to Ely
with Sir Charles and Lady Bunbury, and a large party of
Professor Kingsley's friends. On my return remained quietly
in my own room much fatigued 1 ." After this he did not again
appear in public, though he received his friends at home with
his usual genial hospitality.
Early in October he formally resigned the office of Vice-
Master of Trinity College.
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 5 October, 1862.
CHAPTER VI.
(18631869.)
RECEIVES COPLEY MEDAL OF ROYAL SOCIETY (1863). ROYAL
VISIT TO CAMBRIDGE. DEATH OF MR ROMILLY (1864).
FOUNDATION OF SEDGWICK PRIZE. SYMPTOMS OF HEART-
DISEASE. VISIT FROM DR LIVINGSTONE (1865). AMERICAN
LECTURESHIP. DEATH OF WHEWELL. HONORARY DEGREE
AT CAMBRIDGE (1866). TOUR IN WEST OF ENGLAND (1867).
MEMORIAL BY THE TRUSTEES OF COWGILL CHAPEL. FIFTIETH
COURSE OF LECTURES (1868). DEATH OF LADY MURCHISON
(1869).
THE last years of a life protracted to so great a length
as Sedgwick's are naturally devoid of stirring incident.
At the same time no one who wishes to understand his
character should pass them over hastily ; for they exhibit,
more clearly than any other part of his life, the tenderness of
his affections, his unselfish generosity, and the firmness of his
faith. In a certain sense the load of years sat lightly upon
him, for though he had frequent attacks of severe illness, his
mind remained clear and vigorous to the last, and, as he often
admitted, he was a strong man for his years, at least till
after the severe illness in the spring of 1870. Still, he was
always more or less of an invalid, and rarely out of the hands
of doctors. " While they try to cure one part of my old,
nearly worn-out machinery," he said in 1866, "they damage
another. 'Tis something like putting new wine into old
bottles ; or like the work of a tinker who in patching an old
S. II. 25
386 INFIRMITIES OF OLD AGE.
1863. kettle produces two rents in the place of the old one." The
* 7 8 - least imprudence was sure to bring on one of the numerous
ailments which had been his constant companions throughout
life ; and when, in addition to these, disease of the heart
supervened, the greatest caution became imperative. " While
I am quiet I am well," he wrote in 1865, in answer to a
request to attend a diocesan congress, "but I can bear no
excitement. People may think me shabby to keep away.
Those who know me best will allow for my age and infirmities,
and think me right. When I appear in public they expect
me to take a public part, which I formerly delighted to
do, but which now I cannot do to any useful purpose, and
certainly to my personal risk, if done at all." This necessity
for the utmost caution, as well as increasing deafness, shut
him out from general society ; and, while at Cambridge, he
lived during the last four or five years of his life almost
alone. The intimate friends of his earlier days had pre-
ceded him to the grave, and to the younger generation of
Fellows he had become little more than a venerated name.
His resignation of the office of Vice-Master had relieved
him of his most onerous College duty ; but he continued to
attend the meetings of the Master and Seniors, and occasion-
ally, especially in summer, dined in Hall. He drank no wine
himself, but he took pleasure in coming to the combination-
room, where he sipped his coffee and told stones of bygone
days. " I do like to see people drink good wine ; " he has been
heard to say, " though I have no share in it ; and I will sit
here while you drink a hogshead !"
His academic duties, on the other hand, he performed as
efficiently as his strength would permit, almost to the last.
He often talked of resignation, and as often deferred it. It
would have broken his heart to feel himself a stranger in a
place which he had himself enriched with its most valued
treasures; so he continued (till 1871) to lecture regularly,
and to superintend assistants, whom he employed, at his
own cost, to do certain definite pieces of work. " I mention
DOMESTIC LIFE AT NORWICH. 387
this," he says in one of his Reports, " not by way of boasting; 1862.
but rather as my apology for retaining a Professorship at a ^ t< 7
time of life when the infirmities of age make me incapable
of performing some of its laborious duties."
At Norwich he found a life which was far more congenial
to him than the enforced solitude of Trinity College. During
his terms of Residence he could always ensure the presence of
some members of his family; and he took the most affectionate
interest in his nephew's children. Their father, soon after
his removal to .Dent, had become an invalid, and Sedgwick
took upon himself the care of his entire family. He once
described himself as " an old monk, with a petrified heart, and
an empty head," but when the instincts of paternity had been
developed by his self-imposed duties, no father could have
shewn more practical wisdom in the bringing up of children,
or taken greater pleasure in it. " I expect a sudden flush of
health and happiness will come to me," he wrote in 1871," like
blossoms in winter, when my niece Isabella and two grand-
nieces come to see me 1 ." Norwich too was always hallowed
in Sedgwick's eyes by recollections of his earliest friends
there. When Mrs Stanley widow of the Bishop died in
the spring of 1862, he wrote to Archdeacon Musgrave : "I
loved her and all her family ; and during the twelve years
that Bishop Stanley was at Norwich I lived (while in
canonical Residence) almost as much in the Palace as in my
own house." In the following letter this feeling is nearly as
prominent as that of interest in his children.
To Mrs Vaughan.
NORWICH, December 3U/, 1862.
" I am sitting in the study-chair of your father. If you
remember, Mrs Stanley gave it me, as a keepsake, before you
all left the Palace. When I sit in it I sometimes think of
those dear friends who are gone ; whom I loved so much, and
lived with so much, while they were here....
1 To Miss Kate Malcolm, 31 July, 1872.
25 2
3 88 CARE OF HIS NEPHEWS CHILDREN.
1863. A little after seven I take a hot cup of coffee to Maribell 1 ,
.. 78. an( } jf she have not risen before, I sit by her bed-side while
she drinks it having first put some warm things over her
neck and shoulders. About twenty minutes before eight she
comes to my room we talk together, and say our prayers
together, and these twenty minutes are, I declare, the happiest
of the whole day. At eight o'clock a music-lesson from one
of Dr Buck's assistants. This is sure to be well done ; because
the child has made good progress, and loves the work well.
At nine, breakfast, after family prayers. We dine a little
before two. As to all the other hours of the day, they are
too irregular to admit of count or description. Calling on
friends ; shoppings ; drives ; walks ; the wild beasts on Castle
Hill ; nondescript Christmas shows ; picture-galleries ; etc.
etc. help to fill up each day to the infinite joy of the
two children, and sometimes to my bodily fatigue. We give
and take lunch-parties, and occasional tea-parties. And, if I
can keep bronchitis off my chest, I shall give my party a run
to Lowestoft and Yarmouth. And perhaps I may some day
show Addie how to fire a squib, and fly a rocket...
All that Arthur writes I read with intense interest; and
before long I hope to devour his volumes on the Jewish
Church.... How does he stand towards the authors of Essays
and Reviews ? ..."
In the first days of 1863 Sedgwick received, through
Mrs Bruce, a copy of The Speeches and Addresses of H.R.H.
the Prince Consort. The book was, in fact, a present from the
Queen, who had written in it his name and a touching
inscription.
To the Honourable Mrs Brace.
NORWICH, January gtfr, 1863.
My dear Mrs Bruce,
. .It is not in the language of formal courtesy, but
in the honest words of a loyal and a grateful heart, that I
1 Eldest daughter of Rev. Richard Sedgwick.
PRESENT FROM THE QUEEN. 389
wish to thank Her Majesty. From my childhood I was 1863.
taught by my father to ' fear God and honour the King.' &* 7 8 -
This sentiment never left me ; and -with all true-hearted
Englishmen the sentiment became doubly strong when God
was pleased to place a young Queen upon the throne, whom
we were constrained to love and honour by every bond of
duty and affection.
Many proofs of condescending kindness I have experienced
from our beloved Queen ; and last summer I had the honour
or rather I would call it the high and holy privilege of
conversing freely with her on the subject of those grievous
sorrows that God had brought upon her by removing from
her side the great and good Prince Consort. The remembrance
of that audience, and the thoughts that spring out of it, are
often present with me in the House of God, and still more are
they with me when I bend my knees in private, and ask Him
to bless our Sovereign. Do therefore, dear Mrs Bruce, express
to Her Majesty, in a few earnest and simple words the
simpler the better my heart's true thanks, and my prayer
that God may give her comfort, and shed His best and holiest
blessings upon her, and all whom she loves....
Ever faithfully and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Mrs Norton.
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, March 2oth, 1863.
My dear Mrs Norton,
The sight of your letter has greatly cheered me. I
believed that your address was changed since I last wrote to
you as my dear young cousin (Miss Susan Ridley Sedgwick);
but I did not even know by what name to write to you,
nor did I know that you were still at the Cambridge of the
New World. May God bless you, and make you happy
as a married woman 1 ; and long may He preserve you, so that
1 Miss Sedgwick had married, in 1862, Charles Eliot Norton, Professor of
Fine Art at Harvard,
390 REMINISCENCES.
1863. y u ma y see tne bright happy faces of your children's children.
Mt. 78. i a i so send my kind Christian greetings to Mr Norton, and
to the dear old lady, your grandmamma, who did me the
honour to write to me, and to Miss Ashburner in one word,
to all whom you love, and that includes, I trust, a very large
number. There is one sentence in your kind letter which
makes me very happy ; for it gives me the hope of seeing you
again at the older Cambridge, and of having an opportunity
of giving a welcome to Mr Norton.
On the 22nd of this month, I shall have completed my
seventy-eighth year ; and seventy-eight such eventful years !
I well remember the breaking up of the old Monarchy of
France ; the death of Louis XVI. ; the Reign of Terror ; the
excitement which reached every nook and corner of this
island ; the early struggles for the abolition of the slave-trade.
These things stand out among the remembrances of my early
boyhood. Then followed the rise of Napoleon ; the falling
down of kingdoms ; the threats of invasion ; the phantasm of
old England's doom, and of a despotic empire which was to
be built over the graves of national liberty, and Christian free-
dom. Then came the great providential change, a victory
gained over a gigantic military despotism not by the arms
of man, but by the powers of nature, which are the might of
God's own strength in the workings of His Providence.
And the same years tell us, in their history, of the rise of
England's most anomalous and portentous display of power
in the eastern continent. And during the same years we
have seen the rise of England's children in the new world of
the far west ; first breaking off from the parent stock, and
vindicating their national freedom ; then with all the energy of
their race (and with all the benefits of the political freedom
and Christian civilization of Western Europe) starting on a
new road towards political strength and national greatness,
and advancing on it at a speed unmatched in the past history
of man. And the triumphs of science have gone hand in
hand with these great world-wide movements ; or perhaps it
REMINISCENCES. 391
would be nearer the truth to say, that science has been their 1863.
main-spring, and living strength. Gas-light, railroads, steam- &* 7 8 -
boats, electric telegraphs, are in my memory but things of
yesterday. Years, well remembered, were past in my early life
before such things were so much as heard of; and yet how
vastly they seem to have changed the whole outer world of
civilized Christendom !
It was during the period of our summer residence at the
sea-side, that I received a letter which summoned me to
Windsor Castle, where I had a long private audience of the
Queen. It does seem strange to me, when I think of it, but
I believe I was the first person, out of her own family, to
whom she fully opened her heart, and told of her sorrows.
After the first greeting, when I bent one knee and kissed her
hand, there was an end of all form, and the dear sorrowing
Royal lady talked with me as if I had been her elder brother.
After a long interview I left her with the deepest con-
viction of her good sense, her Christian humility, her faith,
and her patriotism. Her great aim is to carry out the
intentions of the great and good Prince whom God has
removed from her side. ' He had the greatest regard for
'you/ she said, 'and that is why I had a strong desire to
' talk with you without reserve.' Don't accuse me of vanity,
above an old man's measure, for writing this. It was assuredly
the most remarkable event of my summer's life. Since then
she has sent me a beautiful copy of Prince Albert's Speeches,
with an autograph on the blank leaf, in which she calls her-
self ' his broken-hearted widow Victoria.'
In Republican America our cousins may have thought us
mad for our joy and revelry on the occasion of the Prince of
Wales' marriage. It was in truth a burst of loyalty and love
for our good, true-hearted, sorrowing Queen ; and was it not
quite natural to feel joy when the sweet rose of Denmark
came amongst us ? During all this joy I was in sorrow, and
low in health, but I set some merry youthful hearts in move-
ment, and I could fill many sheets, had I time, with an
392 AMERICAN WAR.
1863. account of the humours, and quaint sports, and rural revelry
l - 7 8 - among the mountains of the north of England. The present
reign has, so far, been peaceful and prosperous. We have a
virtuous court ; a Royal household which is a model of
Christian love; an executive powerful without any need for
stretching the implements of its strength beyond the mildest
interpretation of the law. Yet half a million of our people
are in deepest suffering from the terrific miseries brought on
us by the fratricidal war in North America ; but bowing
to God's visitation and bearing up against privations with
unexampled patience, and without loss of patriotism and
loyalty; and we have freedom of speech and action, un-
rivalled, I believe, in any other nation of the world. Such are
the phenomena presented by the old, monarchical, mixed,
Christian, government of England ; and may God preserve it,
both in form and spirit, for ages and ages yet unborn ! May
the same God of truth and love put an end to the desolating
war of our transatlantic cousins! How and by what secondary
means that is to be brought about He only can tell ; and in
His own time we shall know. The war began by acts of
treachery and treason. Had you caught the first movers,
by the acknowledged laws of civilized Christian men, you
might, without blame, have made them end by a dance in
mid-air. At first all good hearts were with you, and the
general expectation was that the treason of the South would
soon be trampled out by the loyal men of the North. But
opinions, as to the event, have greatly changed since the war
began. It was not the raid of a few self-interested traitors ;
it was, in fact, the rising of a nation. The struggle became
national, and in the death-struggles victory has often inclined
to what all men at first called the weaker side. If the South
is to be conquered by a "servile war," who can count or
measure the horrors of the process ? And if the South
be conquered and held in bondage, it can only be by an
armed peace which will be fatal to the liberties under which
you have so soon grown up to a giant strength. I dislike the
AMERICAN WAR. 393
temper of your Northern democrats ; it is fierce, ambitious, 1863.
and I believe incompatible with true civil liberty. But I will ^- 7 8 -
write no more out of what you may (perhaps justly) call my
budget of ignorant old-fashioned prejudices.
I remain, my dear Mrs Norton,
Your true-hearted friend and cousin,
A. SEDGWICK.
To the same.
September 7th, 1863.
"...You tell me that we do not understand the motives
which animate you in the conduct of the horrible * fratricidal '
war. It may be so. If it had been a war for the abolition of
slavery, and the vindication of those natural rights of mankind
which were proclaimed among the first principles of your
Constitution, all good Englishmen would, I think, have been
with you ; but it appears to us that the sovereign power,
or executive, of the United States has abandoned this great
principle ever since the war assumed its deadly character.
But your President has proclaimed freedom to the slave.
True ! he has done so, as a war-measure ; but he leaves the
canker of slavery where it was, or makes it worse than it was,
by making it a bonus to such slave-states as will fight under
his colours. I see no prospect of an end to your ' fratricidal '
war except as a war of extermination, aggravated by the
horrors of servile atrocity.... 1
I say nothing about the conduct of the war, except that it
is more savage and more cruel than any great war of modern
times. Should you gain your object, it can only be by an
extinction of civil liberty (the glory of your Union), and by
the virtual establishment of a strong military despotism.
Such are the thoughts of many honest Englishmen, as true
lovers of civil freedom, and as sincere haters of slavery, as any
man or woman in New England. I can speak for one. I
1 In the omitted passage Sedgwick states the reasons for a change of feeling
in England towards America in nearly the same language he had used in his
former letter.
394 AMERICAN WAR.
1863. sucked in a hatred of slavery from my mother's breast, and
7 8< learnt it at my father's knee ; and the lessons of childhood
were confirmed and fixed in after-life by the honoured personal
friendship of Wilberforce and Clarkson, and many other bright
though less glorious spirits. Old England has suffered, and is
suffering, greatly. No wonder she should grumble. You talk
of war, and you threaten war, and war with England at any
cost might gratify the rabid democratic mobs of America. It
is quite certain that we are not now aggressive. On every
ground of interest and principle we should hate a war ; and on
the score of humanity we should fear and dread its miseries.
I wish with all my heart England could hinder smuggling of
the contraband of war, both to the northern and southern
states ; but no English minister would dare to propose any
change of our law to meet the new occasion. I believe our
ministers are heartily sick and afraid of our great smugglers,
and it is strange that the best vindication of our smuggling
acts is drawn from the published decisions of the great
American jurists....! verily believe that our public men have
acted calmly, and wisely, and with strict practical neutrality,
during the frightful contest of the last two years, and the
severe sufferings of the manufacturers of this country. But
they have no power, like your leading men, to transcend the
law.... If it be your fate to be held in union as a military
despotism, mankind will suffer by it, and you yourselves will
be of all sufferers the greatest.
It was a dream of my early life that I might some
day settle in North America. I am too old to dream now,
and if I were a dreamer I should not feel any longing to
be naturalized in a country desolated by civil war. I was in
our House of Lords when the old Iron Duke brought in
the Bill for Catholic Emancipation. ' I have known much of
the miseries of war,' he said, 'and of all war, civil war is the
most horrible. This is our alternative: the present Bill, or
civil war in Ireland.' I remain, my dear cousin,
Gratefully and affectionately yours, A. SEDGWICK."
COPLEY MEDAL. 395
In November Sedgwick learnt that the Council of the 1863.
Royal Society had awarded to him the Copley medal, the ^ Et> ?
highest honour in their power to confer, " for his observations
and discoveries in the Geology of the Palaeozoic Series of
Rocks, and more especially for his determination of the
characters of the Devonian System, by observations of the
order and superposition of the Killas Rocks and their fossils,
in Devonshire 1 ." This "very agreeable and unexpected news"
gave him much pleasure a pleasure that was enhanced when
he learnt that the award had been suggested in the first
instance by his old friend Sir Philip Egerton, actively promoted
by Professor Owen, and carried against so distinguished a
competitor as Mr Darwin. "That this well-earned recognition
has been long deferred," wrote Dr Falconer, " I freely admit ;
but the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to
the strong, and I trust that the Copley Medal will gratify you,
at least to a fraction of the extent to which it has gratified all
your scientific friends the geologists and palaeontologists
more especially. You must admit that the voice of the
geologists has had an important share in the decision ; and if
they have sinned before, is the door of reconciliation to be
always closed against them ? Within the last ten or twelve
years much young blood has been imported into the Geological
Society, and that young blood cannot understand why there
should be perennial estrangement between it and one of the
leading minds which shaped geology into an inductive
science." Sedgwick's own feelings will be best understood
by a few extracts from his answers to his correspondents :
To Dr Hugh Falconer.
CAMBRIDGE, November gth, 1863.
"...Pleasures would be withered things if we could not
impart them; and our joys would be but lamp-light in
a dungeon if there were no friends to rejoice with us. I
do from my heart thank you for your genial and much-
1 Proceedings of the Royal Society, xiii. 31.
396 COPLEY MEDAL.
1863. prized congratulations. I cannot describe my mixed feelings
Et. 78. O f j y anc i surprise when I received General Sabine's letter
on Friday evening. For years I have considered myself
on the retired list. The pressure of advancing years and the
alarming attacks of giddiness which many times during three
successive years brought me to the ground, drove me from all
exciting field-labours, and still more made me incapable
of any labour of the closet requiring continued thought. But
by a life of systematic idleness ; by very early hours ; by
great temperance, and the avoiding of all external excitements,
I am again a strong man considering that I am passing into
the 4th quarter of my /8th year. God willing I shall be up
at the anniversary of the Royal Society...."
To Professor Clark.
TRIN. COLL., November loth, 1863.
My dear Clark,
I have had many warm congratulations from my
friends in Cambridge on the occasion of the award of the
Copley Medal ; but your kind note, above all of these
greetings, came home to my heart and bosom, and produced
the deepest emotion of grateful joy. With my whole soul I
thank you for your true-hearted congratulations. The past
year has to me been one of much anxiety and domestic
sorrow. But a bright gleam of light seems to have pierced
the gloom that was about me. We have now entered on our
6oth year of academic life. In this long long period I never
exchanged a bitter word with you ; but I have experienced
numberless acts, and words, and looks, of kindness, while we
have been striving onward side by side. It is charming now
in this evening of my life to be cheered by the kind words of
so old and loved a friend. Our sand is nearly run out; I
trust that God will forgive and bless us both ; and allow us to
slide gently out of the world, whenever He may in His secret
counsels resolve to call us away. I remain, my dear Clark,
affectionately and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
ANNIVERSARY OF ROYAL SOCIETY. 397
To Sir Philip Egerton. 1863.
CAMBRIDGE, November \\th, 1863. jEt. 78.
" I have had several very delightful letters since the
award of the Copley medal was announced to me. Yours
must be put before the rest in my grateful remembrance, for
you took the initiative. The knowledge of this fact will make
the honour all the more precious to me. It was a very
unexpected honour ; for I considered myself as quite out of
count For a good many years I was the hardest working-
member of the Geological Society, and I never had a geolo-
gical secret in my life. I have published little, but it is a joy
to me in my old age to find that what I have done is thought
worthy of such a mark of public honour...."
But of all the letters received on this occasion probably
none gave Sedgwick so much pleasure as that of his geolo-
gical friend and ally, Professor Phillips. " I hope," he wrote,
"by a change of my lecture-day to be your henchman on the
3Oth, and to protect you from assault while you drink of the
' loving-cup/ as we of Yorkshire do."
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, December ist, 1863.
...There was a large meeting [of the Royal Society] I
should think almost two hundred. After the details of audit
and other routine matters the President (General Sabine)
announced the medals of the year, and then stated the
grounds on which the awards had been made. The award of
the Copley Medal the highest honour they had to give
was to Professor Sedgwick. Loud cheers followed from all
sides of the room ; and then my long services were enume-
rated with ample praise far more ample, my dear Isabella,
than your old uncle deserves ; and may God preserve his old
head from vanity, and his heart from self-love I 1 ...
At six we dined a party of fifty-five or fifty-six, if
I counted right. Some honoured friends of mine were
1 General Sabine's address an admirable resume of Sedgwick's geological
work is printed in the Royal Society's Proceedings, xiii. 31 35.
398 ANNIVERSARY OF ROYAL SOCIETY.
1863. there. I sat between Professor Owen and Dr Falconer....
t. 78. The President stated, in a short address, that the Copley
Medalist must have the first flowers of their greeting, and
the first proof of their sympathy, etc. I of course replied, and
at considerable length, and with some excitement ; for after
drinking my health they all rose and gave me three times
three cheers. We had no reporters, and I could no more
report what I said than the man in the moon. I should have
been a cold-hearted dolt, unworthy of such a reception, had I
not been greatly moved by it. But there was a solemnity in
my happiness from this remark that forced itself upon me :
I was not greeted by my dear old friends and fellow-labourers.
Hardly one was there. They had been called to their account
before me. Many of my loud warm congratulations came
from the sons of my dear old friends, who said they came to
wish me double joy because their fathers in bygone years had
loved me I was back at my lodgings about ten. John
Conybeare a son of the late Dean of Llandaff accompanied
me to my door...."
One faint echo of his speech has been preserved. He said
that " after half a century of labour, the award brought back
something of the feelings of youth, and made him feel ready
for work again." He was followed by Phillips, who proposed
the health of the President, and told how, some forty years
before, when he was a beginner in geology, he had come
across Sedgwick, riding on a miner's pony and how they
had worked together ever since 1 .
To Rev. A. P. Stanley.
NORWICH, December 27 th, 1863.
My dear Arthur,
I only heard yesterday evening that your mar-
riage took place on Wednesday last. The Times comes to
me every day, yet I seldom look at the domestic news ; but
this joyful news was discussed, with many heartfelt good-
1 The Reader, Vol. ii. p. 666. The story is told at length by Phillips himself
in Natttre, 6 February, 1873.
MARRIAGE OF REV. A. P. STANLEY. 399
wishes, at the Deanery, where I dined yesterday with a family 1864.
party. One lady remarked that there had been a fear the ^ L 79-
marriage ought to be postponed, from the domestic sorrow
that had come to the family of the bride. I replied that
delay would have been quite wrong, that marriage was the
most solemn contract which could be made between God's
children, that it had His most holy sanction, and that husband
and wife were to be sharers in the sorrows of life, as well as
in its joys. Both you and the dear lady whom God hath
given to you have tasted sorrow. But the sounds of sorrow
may become sweet music to the ear and heart when they are
reflected back in softer tones from heaven. I only speak the
truth when I say that some of the most lasting and pleasur-
able emotions of my life arise from the thoughts of those who
are gone. But I am an old man, too old to have many
dreams about the gilded pageants of this life. You and the
dear lady who is now a part of yourself, have, I trust, many,
many years of happy useful life before you. Sorrows came
early to you both. May the latter half of your lives be very
bright and lovely, and as free from all clouds as is compatible
with the atmosphere in which we breathe....
I asked God to bless you both after I rose ; and when
I thought of your marriage, I thought at the same time of
your father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and of the
familiar Christian names by which you were always described
by the lips of those who loved you. So I naturally fell into
the old address. You are still a Canon, and therefore I do
not fear you ; but the moment you become a Dean, I shall
become more respectful. But Canon or Dean, or whatever
you may become, I shall always remain gratefully and affec-
tionately yours, A. SEDGWICK.
To the same.
NORWICH, January i2th, 1864.
My dear Mr Dean,
...On my table last night I found a copy of
The Times ; and in one of the columns of the said Times
400 CONGRATULATES DEAN STANLEY.
1864. I found that Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Doctor of Divinity,
t - 79- & c . &c. had been installed Dean of Westminster. So now,
Mr Dean, you have gone leap-frog over my old withered
head. I bow to you with all humility, and I trust that in
the Deanery you and your lady will live the perfect models
of domestic love and happiness. The situation is only one
step below the episcopal throne ; nay, in your case, you are
on the crowning level of your cathedral. I was afraid that
your working powers might be absorbed in the worrying
details of a diocese ; and I was right glad when I heard that
you were to be Dean of Westminster. I remember well
meeting Bishop Kaye at the Deanery of Bristol in 1820,
when he was coming to enter on the dignity of the Episcopate.
He had mounted a full-bottomed wig (Bishops in those days
had brains to take care of, and did not scud under bare poles
as they foolishly do now), and when we shook hands he for
a moment lost his dignity in a laugh, which shook the said
wig, and made its several hairs uncurl themselves at least
so it seemed to my eyes. I congratulated him on his eleva-
tion, which might give an enlarged sphere of honour and
usefulness to his literary labours. 'No! no!' he replied,
earnestly, ' there is an end of my literary labours. I am now
an operative.' I think I am quoting his words correctly.
In a certain sense, all good men (yes ! and all good women
still more) are operatives ; and may your sickle long show
good service in reaping many a rich literary harvest ! grain
of that kind, if sound, will last as long as the live corn found
in the mummy-cases of Egypt. There is a time for all
things ; and my working days are over ; alas ! with little
to show, though I am now close upon my 8oth year. I have
for the last fortnight been reading nursery tales, and poking
nursery rhymes out of the old and long undisturbed lurking-
places of my memory, and teaching my young people to
skate ; but I deputed my servant to be posture-master on
the ice. 'Tis a shame to pester a Very Reverend Doctor
with such nursery gossip. I trust you will accept from me a
DEATH OF MR HORNER. 401
happy New Year : and you (now that you are married) has 1864.
a genuine plural meaning. You must come and see Norwich. <^t. 79-
I should indeed be proud to show some improvements to you
and Lady Augusta. The dear old friends alas ! are all
gone excepting one weather-beaten old Professor ; but the
city, as it now smites the senses, is much improved. But
come and see.
Ever, Mr Dean, your firm-hearted old friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Sir Charles LyelL
March i$th, 1864.
"...I received the news of Mr Horner's death with much
surprise and sorrow, for I had not heard of his illness. He
was the last remaining friend of my early geological life. I
experienced from him many acts of good-will and kindness,
and I associate him in memory with Buckland, Conybeare,
Greenough, Fitton, John Taylor, and some others. All are
gone, and I am remaining like a dried log, that shews the
high-water mark of bygone days.../'
To Mrs Barnard.
CAMBRIDGE, March 20th, 1864.
My dearest god-daughter,
Indeed I am grateful to you for writing to me....
As for myself, I am in better health than I have been, for
several years, during this season of early spring. The infirmi-
ties of old age are gradually creeping over me. I am much
more deaf than I was when you last saw me, and I have lost
nearly all my teeth. But what can you expect from such a
weather-beaten old fellow as your god-father ?
Of my oldest stock of friends men nearly of my own
standing only two are left in Cambridge, and I am often
compelled to live in solitude. Professor Pryme was several
years my senior, but I can no longer count him, as he has
ceased to reside in the University. Dr. Clark is still here.
He and I were of the same year ; but he has become feeble,
and is very seldom seen. Last year he had a stroke of para-
S. II. 26
402 CHANGES IN CAMBRIDGE.
1864. lysis, from which, however, he is wonderfully recovered, and
- 19- his mind is quite entire and bright. Romilly is still here, but
he lives in a house on the outskirts of Cambridge, and never
dines in Hall. I now and then go and drink tea with him,
when the weather is mild ; and then we talk of old days and
old friends, and have plenty of old-fashioned gossip. He is
as kind and genial as he ever was, but he is very infirm, and
is compelled by a disease of the heart to avoid excitement,
and to live by strict rules. But if some of your old friends
are a little the worse for wear, we have a rising generation
full of youthful joys and hopes. And the town is improving.
The interior of St Mary's church is now become beautiful,
and Golgotha and its wigs are no longer to be seen 1 . All
Saints' ugly church will soon be away, replaced by a hand-
some church which is fast rising in the garden opposite the
gates of Jesus College. New Museums and Lecture Rooms
are rising up in the old Botanic Garden. The Fellows of St
John's will cut us all out. They have swept away one side
of a street ; and are building a chapel which, when finished,
will be the most perfect Gothic structure of our times.
Before I conclude I send you an old man's blessing. May
God bless and long preserve you, my dear god-daughter !
How different my life is from what it was in by-gone years,
when I used to run up to Parker's Piece and drink tea with
your dear father and mother, and laugh and play with their
children ! But still, for one so old, I have many blessings, for
which I ought to be thankful. Kiss your children, and tell
them I sent the kisses; and give my kind remembrances to
Mr Barnard. Ever your true-hearted and loving god-father,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Mrs Hotson.
Sunday Morning, June $th, 1864.
...We have had a glorious festivity, as the papers will tell
you far better than I can do. My capacity of enjoyment is
1 Sedgwick said he would gladly offer himself as a day-labourer to help this
good work.
VISIT OF PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF WALES. 403
not such as it was fifty years since. But I attended all the 1864.
public meetings except the ball on Thursday evening. I did ^ 79-
attend the ball in Trinity College (it was a point of duty) }
and I was truly happy in feeling a glow of pleasure reflected
from those who were 50 or 60 years younger than myself,
and giving themselves up to a whirl of delight and innocent
joy...
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, June 6th, 1864.
" Our festivities went off well, without one single accident
or misadventure. Arthur Stanley, I ought to call him Dean,
and his pleasant, bright, cheerful wife, Lady Augusta, occupied
the rooms next mine, under King Edward's tower. They
more than half lived with me, and multitudes of old friends
called on me, so that I had no moments to call my own
during the days of the Royal Visit. On Thursday [2 June],
a little before one, the Prince and Princess arrived. Shoals
of ladies came to my rooms to stand at my windows, which
looked down upon the pavilion before the Lodge where the
Royal party were to assemble to give away the prizes [to the
University Volunteers]. ...Then off and away to the Senate-
House. I had a good seat on the platform, so I underwent
no fatigue. The reception was everything a heart could wish.
The Princess's eyes sparkled with delight when the under-
graduates made the room shake with their loud cheers for
Denmark.
I thought it my duty that, day to dine in Hall, that I
might meet many old College friends who had come up
to our festivities. I did not go to the ball in the Fitzwilliam
Museum, but I saw the rooms before the hour of reception.
They were truly magnificent, and the combination of the
decorations with the architecture of the hall, and the picture
of the ball-room, were of very great beauty.
Friday, as usual, I rose very early. A second quiet
breakfast with some friends. Then off to the Senate-House
26 2
404 BALL IN TRINITY COLLEGE.
1864. to the Degrees. The Times gives you no notion of Stanley's
*- 19- hearty reception. He was opposed by a few, perhaps half-a-
dozen, voices, but they were instantly overwhelmed by a flood
of acclamations, loud and long-continued, such as I have
seldom heard before. Lord Palmerston was very loudly
cheered. I had a chat with him afterwards, and we agreed
that we were the two oldest men in the Senate-House. The
lunch, or breakfast, at King's was excellent, and the boat-
procession afterwards was beautiful in its way. I then
returned through the walks with Dean Stanley and his lady.
And what next ? I deliberately locked my door, undressed,
and went to bed ! About a quarter before nine I rose, dressed,
and drank a cup of coffee ; and at a quarter before ten I went
to the Trinity College ball-room, as fresh as a lark. The
dancing-platform was a circle about 45 yards in diameter,
constructed in the middle of our second, or cloister, court.
Over it was a grand tent held up aloft by two poles like masts
of a ship. From the great dancing-tent emerged four awnings,
or covered passages : one to the carriage-entrance through the
four arches between our second and third courts ; a second to
the space under the Library, where long tables with tea,
coffee, ices, etc. were spread ; a third into the north cloister ;
and a fourth, very beautifully decorated, led to the Hall,
where supper was prepared. The Hall was splendidly lighted
and decorated, and its effect was very striking. The Royal
party arrived early, and danced joyfully. Hundreds were
dancing at a time on the enormous floor. Room for every
one, hoops and all !
During one of the pauses (while the fiddlers were taking
breath) Lady Hardwicke beckoned to me, and told me
the Princess wished me to be presented to her. So I went
and made my bow to the dear lady. She has a sweet natural
manner, and a sweet voice ; and a look and expression that
go directly to the hearts of those who are near her.
The Royal party of course went first to supper, on the
dais at the top of the Hall. Then followed the others in long
DEATH OF MR ROMILLY. 405
succession....! went home at two the last ball I shall ever ^64.
attend. I danced merrily 53 years since at the Installation ^t. 79.
of the Duke of Gloucester in 181 1.
On Saturday morning I rose at seven, refreshed by several
hours' sleep. I breakfasted with the Vice-Chancellor, and
met the Chancellor and his party. Then I made some
calls, and then my rooms were beset by callers, so that
the retiring wave of our festival was as overwhelming as
its advancing flood...."
In July Sedgwick took a short tour in the Isle of Wight, a
district well known to him by hard work in former years in
company with his assistant and friend Mr. Seeley. This was
succeeded by a short visit to Weymouth, another ancient
hunting-ground, after which he went into Residence at
Norwich. Soon after his arrival he had to endure great
sorrow in the sudden death of Mr Romilly 1 .
To Lady Bunbury.
NORWICH, August 19^, 1864.
"...Dear Romilly was the oldest friend I had in Cambridge.
Indeed he was the only one left of those with whom I was on
close terms of brotherly love during the early years of my
academic life. A cross look or a cross word never, I believe,
passed between us ; and our intimacy became closer and
closer as we advanced in life. He was a Christian indeed,
without selfishness, without guile, abounding in deeds of active
benevolence, and of most angelic temper. And with such
loveable qualities he had good sense, and an ample store of
knowledge, that made his society at once instructive and
delightful. To him I could ever unburden my heart, more
than to any other Cambridge friend, in my hours of doubt, or
anxiety, or sorrow ; and no power under heaven can compen-
sate me for his loss. * Not my will, O God, but Thine be done/
is all I have a right to say. Yes ! I have a right to say more.
1 He died at Yarmouth, on Sunday, 7 August, 1864. He lay down on the
sofa after dinner, and passed away peacefully while his servant was fetching
something he had asked for.
406 FUNERAL OF MR ROM ILLY.
1865. With a full heart I ought to bless His holy name for having
Et. 80. so i on g given me the treasure of such a friend...."
Sedgwick went over to Cambridge to follow his friend's
body to the grave. " A very simple funeral," he writes ;
" everything quite plain. All in the carriages were mourners
in deed, and not in word only. I can speak for one. He was
buried in a vault [at Christ Church, Barn well], where his two
sisters lay. A place had been reserved for him. The Master
of Trinity, the Dean of Ely, Canon Selwyn, and all the
resident Fellows of Trinity (in the vacation few in number)
were in attendance at the Church door. The service was read
with solemnity, and seemed exactly to suit our beloved
friend whom God had taken from us a man of faith and love,
mature in Christian grace 1 ."
To Miss Maribell Sedgwick.
HASTINGS, Monday, January 8tft, 1865.
Dearest Maribell (Isabella erased),
Though my eyes are much better, yet writing soon
tires them. And surely my sight must be very bad when I
begin by mistaking you for your aunt Isabella. But when I
had wiped my spectacles, I fancied that I saw your young
round face smiling upon me, and saying to me : ' / am not
Isabella, my dear uncle, and you wrote to her yesterday at
your brother's tea-table !' So out went Isabella, and you took
her place at the head of this letter.
I wrote last week, first to the whole parsonage, afterwards
to mamma, and then to Addie. Was it not so ? I only
remained one night at Cambridge ; and on Friday last I
started early for London, where I halted, and ate a little lunch
at Suffolk Street ; and then took my place for Hastings, where
I arrived as it was beginning to be dark....
I am, I hope, to leave on Wednesday for Dorset House,
Clifton, on a visit to my friend Mrs Guthrie, and I shall
remain there, I trust, three or four days, and then return to
1 To Mrs Richard Sedgwick, 12 August, 1864.
SPECIMENS OF DENT DIALECT. 407
Cambridge. So, my darling, write to me at Dorset House, 1865.
(and may I hope for a bit of St Paul's life at the same time ?) &* 8o<
I declare I have done one sheet before I have reached my
brother's lodgings ! So take my hand, and let us walk thither
in time for James' dinner. c Dinner, dear uncle ! Why you
told me you had lunched at London ; and have you not told
me, again and again, that lunch in the tongue you learnt at
Dent always meant dinner?' True, my love; but the Dent
dialect is sadly spoilt by all sorts of 'pupil teachers;' and I
may sometimes forget my sweet native tongue, for indeed my
poor old memory very often mocks me. So come along, my
dear, and bother me with no more questions. Tell your
mamma that uncle James was quite well, and looking well ;
and aunt Kate was not looking ill, and was infinitely better
than we expected to find her. She is thinner than she was.
In the beautiful dialect of Dent they would (in my early
years) have said : ' that she was paired, and terribly slyped,
but was luking up and sune wad be in brave fettle again.'
Ask uncle Thomas to tell you what it is to be 'in brave
fettle,' and what the words ' paired ' and ' slyped ' may mean.
Your mamma had the misfortune of not knowing the Dent
dialect when she was your age, and therefore I send you to
uncle Thomas. And now my eyes are tired ; and I have
been writing a vile hand. So put old uncle to shame by
sending him a letter in your best hand. And always try to
write your best. Your last letter to me was not in your best
hand. Don't get into the modern boarding-school hand. Let
your B's be B's, and not ugly things like this ^J. No! I can-
not write anything so horrible as a real boarding-school B....
Don't bother your B's, but turn them with a good double round.
Tell your mamma that her big B's always sting me. Let me
try to draw a picture of one of her insects (^L^). No ! it is
not half as bad as one of her B's. Let me try again
That is better ; but not up to your mamma's insects....
Ever, my darling god-child, Your loving uncle,
A, SEDGWICK.
408 FOUNDATION OF SEDGWICK PRIZE.
1865. At the beginning of 1865 the value of the Woodwardian
JEt. So. es tates had so greatly increased that the Council of the
Senate recommended that the Professor's salary should be
raised to ^500 per annum. 1 On the same day the Senate
accepted a gift specially designed to perpetuate the memory
of Sedgwick. Mr Augustus Arthur VanSittart, formerly
Fellow of Trinity College, one of his intimate friends, and
most devoted admirers, gave 500, "for the purpose of
encouraging the study of geology among the resident
members of the University, and in honour of the Reverend
Adam Sedgwick." The conditions to be attached to the
gift were discussed by himself and Sedgwick, and a prize
was founded, called the Sedgwick prize, to be given every
third year for the best Essay on some subject in geology or
the kindred sciences.
To Mrs Philpott.
CAMBRIDGE, March 6th, 1865.
"...No man likes to be quite forgotten; and in the
solitude of old age there is a great charm in knowing that we
have a kind place among the thoughts of our absent friends.
I have only to live sixteen more days to complete my 8oth
year. When I was young, such a period looked like an
eternity: for my mind supplied me with no feeling or
experience that helped me to grasp it. Considering my
years I am a strong man : and till lately I was capable of
taking and of enjoying robust exercise. Part of the Christmas
Vacation I spent with my friends at Fakenham ; and they
afterwards visited me at Norwich, when I naturally exerted
myself as much as I could. The days passed there very
pleasantly ; but when the excitement was over I felt sensations
of exhaustion, along with palpitations of the heart in a more
aggravated form than I had ever felt before. So, after my
return, I sent for Dr Paget ; and a stethoscopic examination
proved, what I before suspected, that I had an organic disease
1 Grace of the Senate, 23 February, 1865.
SYMPTOMS OF HEART DISEASE. 409
of the heart. This knowledge imposes on me (not merely as 1865.
a matter of prudence but as a most solemn duty) the necessity Mim 8o -
of living very quietly, and of doing my best, God being my
helper, to set my house in order. Thank God I am much
better now in my general health. Indeed I am becoming
sleek and fat in my old age ; but the organic complaint
is there still. If I ever exert myself in any way (e.g. if
I walk up my staircase at the pace I used to do) I soon
have a warning throb in the left side of my chest, and am
compelled to slacken my pace. I dare say if you saw me
in the streets you would say that I was walking with a
solemn dignity which did not mark my paces in by -gone
years...."
To Rev. C. B. Brodie.
CAMBRIDGE, March gtb, 1865.
"...I was called to a Seniority Meeting; and from our
Combination Room I went to see the degree of LL.D.
conferred on Dr Tischendorf, the great biblical critic, and
the discoverer and publisher of the oldest Greek MS. of
the New Testament in the world, according to some; and
allowed I think by all to be nearly of the same date with the
famous Vatican MS.
We then had a vote whether our examiners should
admit lady candidates, and it was carried 1 . I was in the
minority. I think the plan will be a mere stepping-way to
the puffing of second-rate forward chits and 'bloomers.' I
hope, however, now that the Grace is carried, that I was
mistaken...."
In Hall that day the following conversation took place
between Mr Martin and Sedgwick :
M. I never could have believed that the University would have
sunk so low as this.
S. No indeed ! nasty forward minxes, I call 'em !
1 A scheme for extending the Non-Gremial Examinations of the University to
girls, under the supervision of the Local Examinations Syndicate. The numbers
were: Placet, 56, Non Placet, 51.
410 EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY.
1865. Xo ]tf rs phUpott.
Et ' 8a CAMBRIDGE, March 2$th, 1865.
"...I thank you for your kind birthday letter. My friends
have not forgotten me in my old age. On the morning of the
22nd (my 8oth birthday) I received eighteen post-letters, and
several books and parcels, and a beautiful arm-chair, and
a little box full of sweet roses and violets. So, if you will
come and see me, you will find me living in an atmosphere of
sweetest odours. But outside of my rooms there are no
zephyrs, but terrible rasping north-easters. I have not gone
out of my rooms since last Saturday, and that day the
wild wind blew into my ears and made me so deaf that, for a
day or two, I feared I was about to lose the sense of
hearing....! have now answered nearly all my letters a
heavy task at this season ; but on the whole a pleasant
task. They have a saying in Dent which I first heard in my
childhood (about 75 years since) from an old butcher: 'love
makes o' things easy.' I began with the children, who had
written, in laborious round hands, to greet their old uncle.
And bravo ! I have nearly done. But I have broken Paget's
orders to pieces, for he tells me to write few letters and short
ones. I am quite well if I can keep quiet, but after any
imprudent movement or fatigue, I am sure to be reminded of
my heart-disease by a sensation of tightness in my chest,
and by an interrupted palpitating pulse...."
To Dr Livingstone.
CAMBRIDGE, March \6th, 1865.
My dear Dr Livingstone,
I have seen in one of our Papers, that you are now
in London, but soon about to leave it, on a new Christian
mission to Africa. Whenever, and whithersoever, you may go,
may God bless your labours of love, and give you long life,
and help you to perfect your benevolent plans....! do long to
have an hour's talk with you about our beloved and lamented
Christian friend Bishop Mackenzie, and about some other
DISLIKE OF HIGH CHURCHMEN. 411
points connected with the, apparently, abandoned Mission 1865.
not, however, I trust, permanently abandoned. ^ 8o -
I greatly dislike the tendency to formal superstitious
observances in the present day. Of course I am alluding to
the High Church party in England. The idolatrous element
is rife amongst us. We want to lean upon our own works
and merits, and count them up as if they gave us the right to
draw upon our Redeemer's treasures. We are the slaves of
our senses, and too willing to follow their lead, rather than to
lay the foundations of holy truth in the simple teaching of the
Gospel, and the acceptance of an enlightened conscience.
Nor is this all. Many of our ministers and people are in an
unhealthy craving for the office and power of a sacrificing
Priest, and the dicta of an infallible authority, that may save
them (in these days of multitudinous difficulties) from all
further trouble. This might flatter the pride of the shepherd,
and save both shepherd and flock from the toil of thinking,
and the fatigue of further wandering. But it is false to the
cause of truth, and a flinching from one of the many forms of
probation that our God and Redeemer has given us. These
subjects also I should perhaps have talked over with you.
Speaking too of my own craft (but age and infirmities
have almost taken me out of the fields of geology) I admire
the zeal with which its work is carried on ; and especially the
great palaeontological treasures which are spread before our
admiring senses. But the Geological Society is partly in
fetters. It is not the honest independent body it once was ;
and some of its leading men are led by the nose in the train
of an hypothesis I mean the development of all organic life
from a simple material element by natural specific transmuta-
tion, ending in the flora and fauna of the actual world with
man at its head. Darwin has made this theory popular, but
he has not added one single fact that helps it forward ; and I
think that it appeared (about sixty-five years since) far better
in the poetry of the grandfather, than now in the prose of the
grandson. Lyell has swallowed the whole theory, at which I
412 CRITICISM OF MODERN GEOLOGISTS.
1865. am not surprised for without it, the elements of geology, as
i. 80. h e expounded them, were illogical. He is an excellent and
thoughtful writer, but not, I think, a great field-observer, and
during his long geological labours he has never been able to
look steadily in the face of nature except through the
spectacles of an hypothesis. His mind is essentially deduc-
tive, and not inductive. Now geologists have not yet
sufficiently unrolled the records of the earth to reach a starting
point of knowledge from which to reason deductively with
perfect safety. They may varnish it as they will ; but the
transmutation theory ends (with nine out of ten) in rank
materialism ; which is as pestilent in the investigations of
material science, as is Popery in the discussions of religious
truths, and the duties of a religious life. There is a world of
mind, as well as a world of matter ; and all the materialists on
the earth will never bridge over the interval between the two.
I fear I must have fatigued you, my dear and honoured
friend. Often from laziness, and sometimes on principle, I
abstain from letter-writing; but when I begin I never know
how to stop. May God bless you, preserve you, and comfort
you. So prays your aged and affectionate friend,
ADAM SEDGWICK.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, April -$rd, 1865.
"...On Thursday [30 March] I learnt that Lady Affleck
was now without any hope of recovery. I thought it my
duty to write to the Master, and to say all I could, as his
oldest friend, to comfort him ; and I prayed that God would
bless him and sanctify his sorrow. Next morning John
brought me a letter from the Lodge. I shed many tears
when I read it, written in heart-anguish, yet in a tone of
Christian submission. On Saturday the news from the Lodge
became more and more gloomy. The hour of death was
apparently at hand.... She breathed her last on Saturday
evening about half-past eleven o'clock. It is a terrible, and
DEATH OF LADY AFFLECK. 413
in many ways an irreparable loss to Whewell, and it is a 1865.
great sorrow to us all. She was the Christian grace and sun- &* 80.
beam of the Lodge. I wrote a second letter of sympathy to
the Master, such as I thought became the occasion ; and I am
to pay him a melancholy visit at eleven this morning. He
has taken my letters very kindly, as I thought he would, and
I believe that he has found some comfort from them...."
To the same.
April io//fc, 1865.
"...The funeral on Friday [7 April] was just what it ought
to have been touching and simple. The body was conveyed
by college servants to the Chapel of course under a pall,
but without the formality of pall-bearers. Then the psalms
and the sublime lesson were solemnly read, without music.
The Master immediately followed the coffin, giving his arm to
Mrs Sumner Gibson.... There were few undergraduates, as the
vacation had tempted them away from Cambridge. All the
resident Heads of Colleges, and other leading members of the
University, were assembled in the chapel. ...The Master bore
up as well as he could ; but several times, in our chapel and
by the grave-side, his grief overcame him, and found its
natural vent in tears and passionate sobbings...."
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
LANGCLIFFE NEAR SETTLE, 23 June, 1865.
...I am looking over the green fields and sweet woodlands
of the valley of the Ribble. They are flanked by lofty
precipices of limestone which beautifully reflect the sunlight :
and, since I came hither, on the I4th inst, we have had glorious
sunshine, each day, from sunrise to sunset. By the mountain-
road (over the Yorkshire moorlands) which runs between
Penygent and Ingleborough, we can reach the extreme point
of the valley of Dent, after passing over 1 2 or 13 miles of very
rugged road. The structure of the country does not change ;
and the rock upon which stands the old parsonage of Dent
4H GEOLOGICAL TOUR IN KENT.
1865. is only the unbroken prolongation, towards the N.E., of the
JEt. 80. g ranc i limestone rocks of Giggleswick-scar and Ingleborough.
I left Cambridge on the 3Oth of May, and spent a week
among the cliffs that form the N.E. coast of Kent. The
weather was too hot for hard work, and my two friends, who
toiled hard and made great collections, were half broiled by
the blazing sunbeams. On level ground I can walk well yet
(well for a man of 80), but the state of my heart makes it
imprudent for rue to climb precipices. So I drove, where I
could, along the sands, or by the country roads above the cliffs ;
and when such could not be found, I went on foot ; or halted
at some village inn and sat upon a tombstone till my friends
came back from 'the diggings.'..."
To Mrs Cooper.
June, 1865.
"...The letter you directed to me at The Pier Hotel,
Sheerness, reached me on Friday morning, just before we left.
In a little more than an hour we were established at The
Bull, Rochester. We did some good geological work in its
immediate neighbourhood. I left my companions (Mr Seeley
my assistant, and Keeping, a capital cliff-workman), and
spent an hour or two in looking at the magnificent remains of
a Norman castle. It stands on less ground than the castle
at Norwich ; but it is much more lofty, and the great square
keep is flanked by four great towers that give the ruin a very
picturesque outline and the outworks, which at Norwich
have quite disappeared, are seen at Rochester in grand
picturesque masses. I also visited the cathedral, which has
been sadly damaged, in its external look, by vile, tasteless,
improvements and restorations, done in the worst style. In
the interior the nave has some good Norman arches ; and the
choir has some good Early English arches and clustered
pillars, but spoilt, here and there, by vile attempts at restora-
tion...."
Besides studying the antiquities of Rochester, Sedgwick
GUESTS AT NORWICH. 415
found time, while his friends were at work, to run up to 1865.
Greenwich. "It was the Anniversary visitation/' he writes, ^t. 80.
"under the direction of the Admiralty; and the First Lord
was there, looking as wise as he could, though I suspect that
he knew precious little about the scientific details. Like
many others, he took them all for granted. It used to be a
grand business when the persons invited assembled near the
Tower, and went down the river in Admiralty barges, and in
grand procession-order. But railroads are sad levellers, clip
the wings of time, and spoil old civic pageants. I met many
friends some of them sadly changed by the wrinkles old
Time had chiselled on their cheeks since I had seen them.
Admiral Smyth, a right merry man, used always to be there ;
he is now too infirm. Dr Robinson of Armagh and Sir David
Brewster (both of whom you remember) attended the meeting.
I dared not attend the great dinner at the Ship Hotel, which
is the crowning work of the day. When a younger man I
used to delight in the jolly dinner before we entered the
barges, and went back to the Tower stairs V The next day
Sedgwick took his friends to see the Great Eastern steam-
ship, then taking on board the Atlantic cable, and spent
several hours in examining her. For a while at least, the
weight of eighty years sat lightly on his shoulders !
Soon after this expedition Sedgwick began his Residence
at Norwich. In the first days of August he had the pleasure
of carrying out a long-cherished project : that the Dean of
Westminster and his wife should meet Dr and Mrs Vaughan
under his roof. "Among the happy remembrances of my
long life", he wrote to Lady Augusta Stanley, "I often turn
to the days I spent at Norwich while the Stanleys ruled the
Palace. Those dear days are gone into the fathomless abyss
of past time. But I do think they would come back again
spite of my old age and dim senses if you and the Dean
would join Dr and Mrs Vaughan during their promised visit
to my queer old Residence in the Close. I will give you a
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 8 June, 1865.
416 DR STANLEY AND DR VAUGHAN.
1865, warm, true-hearted welcome. My days were nearly numbered,
Et. 80. as I thought, last winter ; but God has given me back such
health and spirits that I can look forward with joy to such a
visit as my imagination is now painting. Do not dash it out;
but come, in your own dear personal presence, and gladden
me, and our common friends who may cross our threshold."
The visit lasted for nearly a week, and was in every way
successful "the weather glorious, and the faces of our friends
bright with welcome;" nor did Sedgwick's health suffer from
it, though he owned to great fatigue when it was over. He
had, moreover, the satisfaction of knowing that he had given
infinite pleasure to his guests. " We can never tell you how
intensely we enjoyed our visit," wrote Mrs Vaughan ; "I
assure you it has been to us more than words can at all
express. The lessons we learnt the memories we stored up
and the delightful impressions made upon us, will never, so
long as we live, fade away."
These days of excitement had been prefaced by an
unexpected visit from Dr Livingstone, who had been spend-
ing a few months in England, and was now about to return
to Africa.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
NORWICH, August \6tk, 1865.
"...Dr Livingstone came on the second of this month by
an early train, and left me on Wednesday the third by an
evening train which left Norwich before the arrival of the
Stanleys and the Vaughans. His time was too limited to
remain a day longer. He was grave in manner, but cheerful
at heart, and full of hope. He came expressly to see me, and
to talk with me. Much most interesting talk we had together.
He is now on his way to Bombay ; thence a man-of-war will
convey him to the coast of Africa, and he means, God willing,
to open a way from some spot north of any point claimed by
the Portuguese Government. They are slave-dealers and
Papists, and therefore, on both accounts, adverse to any
DR LIVINGSTONE. 417
scheme bearing upon the diffusion of Christian light, and 1865.
Christian protestant freedom. When we parted on the plat- &* 8o -
form I came away more deeply affected than I thought
possible. I came back to the Close weeping and sobbing
like a child. I was sorrowing most of all, like the elders of
the Church of Ephesus, because I thought that 'I should see
his face no more.' "
To Sir J. F. W. Herschel.
LOWESTOFF, October 6th, 1865.
My dear Sir John,
Your dear daughter Maria has been very happy in
her childhood and her youth ; and God grant that she may
be happier still as a married woman ! a thrice happy wife,
cheered by the brightest fruits of domestic love ! I like the
name of Hardcastle 1 ! 'Tis the name of the hero of She Stoops
to Conquer a right merry play I saw acted in a barn at Dent
about seventy years since. May she wear the name with joy
and honour, in radiant health and cheerfulness, through the
years of a long life ! and may every serious thoughtful move
she may make, be a move towards heaven ! True love is an
immortal thing. It begins here ; but if it be of the right
kind it will bear its robust fruits everlastingly in heaven. I
send an old man's blessing to Lady Herschel, to you all.
During August and September I was 'keeping Residence,'
as we call it, at Norwich. My turn of service ended on the
3<Dth of the last month. On Monday I came hither with my
niece and two of her daughters (one counting twelve years and
the other only four) to avoid the great theological Babel the
Clerical Congress which is this week holding its turbulent
meetings at Norwich. A man who is deaf as a post, has a
gouty temper, and a heart organically diseased, and who bears
upon his back the load of eighty years, is ill-fitted for the
squabbles of High Church and Low Church. I expect no
good from the meeting ; and I believe its fruits will not tend
to the diffusion of Christian love. May I prove mistaken !...
1 Miss Herschel married Henry Hardcastle, of Trinity College, B.A. 1863.
s. ii. 27
4i 8 FORTY-SEVENTH COURSE OF LECTURES.
1865. Next week I purpose to return to Cambridge, and during
JEt. So. the October term I hope to give my course of lectures. If so,
it will be my 47th course ! My young people have been
steeping themselves in the sea, and here they are coming with
right merry faces. So no more time for writing. Ever, my
dear Herschel, truly and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
" I got well through my course of lectures in the Michael-
mas term, far better than I expected," Sedgwick tells us ;
but while delivering them he was suffering from what he
calls " a decay of sight," and the exertion brought on an
inflammation of his eyes, which affected them to the end of
his life. At the end of November his sister-in-law, widow of
his brother John, died at Langcliffe near Settle. He paid a
hasty visit to Yorkshire in order to attend the funeral, which
took place at Dent. The long weary journey over the hills
occupied an entire day.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, Tuesday evening,
December %th, 1865.
Dearest Isabella,
Once more in my old College home, and now in
solitude. Sometimes I think of you as my darling child,
sometimes as my beloved companion and Christian friend,
the comfort and solace of my old age. I thank God that
I have been permitted to mourn with you in your late
sorrow, and to be with you in your solemn duties of respect
to the mortal remains and the memory of your beloved
mother. This evening, like myself, you will perhaps be in
solitude. May the Holy Spirit of God be your strong and
abiding Comforter, so that your sorrows and your tears may
be sanctified and turned to the health of soul and body !...
Ever your true-hearted uncle,
A. SEDGWICK.
PROPOSED AMERICAN LECTURESHIP. 419
To Mrs Norton.
LANGCLIFFE near SETTLE, YORKSHIRE, &* 8l -
February 28th, 1866.
" ...I give you joy on the successful end of the terrible war
which desolated the Southern States of your Union. The
price you have paid has been great but not too great for
the purchase of freedom for your negro fellow-creatures....
It is delightful to think that whoever walks within the limits
of the United States, whatever may be his complexion, may
now hold up his head as a free man. Whatever may happen
in the ordinary course of nature, a great and glorious future
is before you ; and I trust that Providence, who has given
you so much civil freedom, and a country abundant in the
physical materials of strength far beyond that of any other
nation, may also give you a moderation in the use of your
gigantic strength, so as to make it tell greatly upon the
virtue and the happiness of mankind....
Some news came to me last night which greatly displeased
me. The establishment in Cambridge of a lectureship to be
filled from time to time by a gentleman from one of the
Universities of the United States was proposed, but the
Grace (as we call it) was thrown out by a vote of our
Senate. It was a novel proposition, of which I heard before
I left Cambridge, and all the leading members of the Uni-
versity to whom I spoke on the subject were in favour of it.
But a letter was published soon afterwards by a clergyman of
the University, who wrote under the terror of republicanism
and heresy. When I read the letter I thought it sounded
like a death-knell to the Grace. The knell brought crowds of
country clergymen to Cambridge, and thus the best working-
members of the University have been deprived of an institution
which would, I believe, have contributed to their intellectual
happiness and honour 1 ...."
1 The proposal to which Sedgwick alludes was made by Henry Yates
Thompson, B.A. formerly a scholar of Trinity College. After a visit to America
in 1864 he offered " to endow a lectureship, or, as we call it at Lincoln's Inn, a
272
420 INFLAMMATION OF THE EYES.
1866. To Sir y. & Wm Herschel
Mt. 81.
DENT PARSONAGE, March i6th, 1866.
My dear Herschel,
The condition of my eyes makes me almost a
prisoner, and compels me to make use of my niece's pen,
not the niece whom you saw at Norwich, but my nephew's
wife, who, with a large family of small children, is living here
in the house which was the home of my childhood, and ever
since has been the home of my heart. It was the infirmity of
my sight which drove me from Cambridge about five weeks
since. After spending about three weeks with my niece
Isabella, who lives near Settle, I was sufficiently well to bear
a journey to this place ; and I am now so much better that I
trust I shall be able to return to my duties at Cambridge by
the end of next week.
At the time I left Cambridge our dear friend Whewell
was in good health, and in a happy and genial temper. I
never saw the house look more cheerful than it did then ; for
some bright, clever, warm-hearted persons were his guests.
Greatly was I shocked when I heard, soon after my arrival at
my niece's house, that he had fallen from his horse, and been
readership, at Harvard University, its object being the delivery of a biennial
course of twelve lectures during a residence of one term at Cambridge in England,
on the History and Political Institutions of the United States of America, such
reader to be appointed biennially by the President and Fellows of Harvard
University (subject to the veto in each case of the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge),
and his sole qualifications to be American citizenship, and the opinion of his
appointers that he is a fit person to deliver such a course of lectures." Some
preliminary correspondence with the authorities at Harvard having taken place,
Mr Thompson informed the Vice- Chancellor, 27 October, 1865, of what had been
done. He subsequently suggested that before the scheme was adopted one
preliminary appointment should be made. The Council of the Senate stated these
suggestions in a Report, and introduced a Grace to place a room at the lecturer's
disposal. The proposal created extraordinary interest. There was an animated
discussion in the Arts School (10 February 1866), where Mr W. G. Clark,
Dr Bateson, Professors Kingsley, Lightfoot, and Thompson, warmly supported
the scheme. The clergyman referred to by Sedgwick is probably the Rev. Edw.
Dodd of Magdalene College. When the voting took place (22 February) the
numbers were: Placet 81 ; Non Placet 107.
DEATH OF WHEWELL. 421
picked up in a state of insensibility, and that after a partial T 866.
recovery of consciousness it was found that his side was &* 81.
paralyzed. Such was the form in which the news reached
me, and considering his age, and habit of body, I could not
but entertain very gloomy anticipations. After the hour that
I heard the fatal news I had frequent daily communications,
by post, by telegrams, and sometimes by both, with his nieces
and my friends at Cambridge, up to the time of his death.
Had the funeral been a few days later I should probably have
defied the medical veto, and gone up to Cambridge, that I
might mourn over the remains of dear Whewell along with
friends whom I love and honour, and who had a common
grief with me. As it was, I was compelled to keep away, to
my grievous sorrow. He was not only my dear and honoured
friend of full fifty years' standing, but he was the only friend
at Cambridge who was associated in memory with the joyful
days of my early and hard-working academic life. Terrible
will be my feeling of desolation if I again be permitted to
enter within the Great Gate of Trinity College. Professor
Thompson, as I learned yesterday from The Times, is to be
dear Whewell's successor. He has a reputation worthy of
the place, for he is, I believe, universally regarded as the
profoundest Greek scholar in the University, and his scholar-
ship is not confined to mere elegance of interpretation, and
critical skill, but with such acquisitions he combines a
profound knowledge of the philosophic literature of Greece,
and its powerful bearing upon the literature, habits of thought,
and civilization, of modern Europe. But his occasional
feebleness of health, and his perhaps over-fastidiousness
of taste, have so far prevented him from being a very
productive labourer. All things considered, I rejoice in
his appointment, but in the vastness of acquisition and the
depth of his scientific attainments, and in his working power,
he is not to be named with our late friend, whose giant
strength, my dear Herschel, you were able to appreciate far
better than I could pretend to do. One thing I can say:
422 DEATH OF OLD FRIENDS.
1866. that you will rejoice to know that during the latter years of
M,i. 81. hi s iif e the infirmities which played upon the surface of his
character seemed gradually to disappear. He became more
genial, more gentle, and I will venture to say more heavenly-
minded. He was a great, generous, large-hearted, and good
man, and during the short remnant of my life I shall not
see again his like among the members of Trinity College.
In expressions of this kind I have in letters to my friends
done my best to discharge my conscience, and I have never
been able to do so without tears and heart-sorrow ; but it is
sorrow tempered by Christian hope, and it is my honest and
comforting belief that, in the fulness of that hope, dear
Whewell died....
Affectionately and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
From Professor Thompson.
11 March, 1866.
My dear Professor,
I know not how to answer or acknowledge your kind and
most eloquent congratulations. Of all the letters I have received on
the occasion, and they have been far kinder and far more numerous
than I could have expected, only that of our old friend the Bishop of
St David's has given me so much pleasure as yours. The office
would be an insupportable burden to me, if I thought that my
appointment was disapproved of by the College, especially by those
great and good members of it who have made it what it now is : and
any assurance to the contrary from one of them gives me a pleasure
which I should vainly attempt to describe.
That God may long spare your life to be a glory to Trinity, and
a delight to all its members, is the hearty prayer of
Yours most truly and affectionately,
W. H. THOMPSON.
A man in stronger health than Sedgwick might well have
been broken down by the succession of sorrows with which he
was afflicted at this time. One woe did tread upon another's
heels with painful rapidity. Soon after the news of Whewell's
death, came that of Archdeacon Evans a friend of nearly his
own standing at Cambridge, and, for a short time, one of his
competitors for the Woodwardian Chair; then his brother
HONORARY DEGREE AT CAMBRIDGE. 423
Mr James Sedgwick passed away; next, after a very short j866.
illness, Mrs Guthrie, and Mr Harford, her friend and neighbour, ^Et. 81,
and Sedgwick's friend as well; and, lastly, one of the daughters
of Dean Conybeare, whom he had known from a child. Under
these successive shocks some of which affected others near
and dear to him as much as himself, we are not surprised to
hear that " my nervous system gave way, and for five weeks
I again took shelter with Isabella. I was liable to continual
attacks of vertigo, which often made me incapable of walking
without help. Isabella again wrote for me ; but my head
would not bear to hear her voice in long-continued reading.
I was kept in almost perfect quietness for several weeks 1 ."
This affectionate care had the desired effect, and after a visit
to the seaside, he was well enough to return to Cambridge,
where (31 May) the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was
conferred upon him. We believe that he was the first resident
member of the University selected for this distinction.
To his great-nieces.
CAMBRIDGE, April 6th, 1866.
My dearest little great-nieces,
...Yesterday's post brought me a letter from Linda
Barnes. I think it will amuse you all. Mr Barnes, Linda's
father, died last year, which explains the black edge of her
paper. He was a merchant ; and he called one of his ships
The Adam Sedgwick, and over the prow of the ship is a great
bust of your old uncle. She calls it beautiful and white. If
it be like an old face which I saw in the looking-glass this
morning, while I was shaving, it cannot be very white and
beautiful. For I am about the colour of an old saddle, and the
blasts of 8 1 winters have made my face wrinkled and rugged.
No matter, my darlings, I still have a heart to love you, and I
send you all my best blessings.
Your loving old uncle,
ADAM SEDGWICK.
1 To Canon Wodehouse, 8 July, 1866.
424 DEATH OF MRS GUTHRIE.
!866. To Mrs Hotson.
g t 8l Sunday Morning, Apiil 22, 1866.
My dear Mrs Hotson,
I am very grateful to you for your kind note.
Words of sympathy are very precious to man or woman
when under sorrow. And the sorrow I have felt at the death
of my old and beloved friend Mrs Guthrie has pressed Very
hard upon me, and almost bent me to the ground. It was a
great comfort to me that I was able, on Friday last, to appear
at the grave-side of one whom I dearly loved and honoured,
and to mourn over her remains while the sublime words of
our funeral service went to our hearts, and told us that Christ
had by his death taken away the sting of death, and that we
were not to mourn like men without hope. Thanks be to
God we have indeed the full assurance of hope in the instance
of our dear departed sister. For her faith was firm and made
perfect by love. And for many a long year had she shown
how well the hands can work when the heart is in communion
with the Spirit of a Redeeming God. A more devoted, un-
selfish, and kind lady did not live under heaven. Her ways,
too, were ways of pleasantness, and wherever she went joy
and gladness seemed to be her attendants. She was a woman
of bright wit ; of great natural tact ; of a judgment that led
her, with God's help, to do day by day what was best to
be done among young and old ; among fellow-creatures in
great trials of pain and poverty, in sickness and sorrow. It
is a blessed privilege to have seen and known such a true-
hearted Christian sister, and I shall never see her like
again.... Again accept my thanks for your very kind note,
and believe me truly and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, October 22nd, 1866.
"...On Wednesday next (the 24th), I hope to give my
opening lecture the first of my 48th course 1 ! I trust that I
1 This lecture is reported in The Cambridge Chronicle, 27 October, 1866.
FORTY-EIGHTH COURSE OF LECTURES. 425
may begin in good spirits and good hope, though my memory is 1866.
more shaken, my ears more deaf, and my eyes more dim than &* 8r
they were last year at this season. The 'Early Fathers,' with
their youthful sons, and with wives to help them, have been
here in droves, and have left me but little leisure. I have
now actually written, in the rough, a part of our Memorial to
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners , and in a few days (D.V.)
you shall have the copy to read....
Last Thursday evening some young blockheads at St
John's were firing pistols at a mark ; and the light of my
bedroom window (just while I was undressing for the night)
was too great a temptation to be resisted. So the boobies
fired two shots at it, and sent two bullets through it, one of
which passed within two feet of my head...."
What happened when this matter came to be investigated
is worth relating, for it shews how kind Sedgwick could be,
even when he had good reason to be angry. " One morning,"
writes Professor Bonney, " when I was keeping in the Second
Court of St John's, I heard a loud knocking in my outer
room, and on emerging from my study found Professor
Sedgwick in a considerable state of indignation. He had
come to me, as one of the Deans, to complain that the night
before a couple of shots, fired from a pistol, had struck one of
his windows, and entered the room. There could be no
doubt, he said, that they had been fired from our College. I
thought the best plan was to offer to come and see the place,
and went back with the Professor. He had good cause for
indignation. Both bullets had pierced the glass, one in-
denting the wooden frame, on which it had glanced, the other
making a very marked bruise on the opposite wall of the
room. I soon saw that the shot must have come from a
particular window, and having done all I could to appease
the Professor, went back to College, and sent for the occupant
of the rooms in question. He at once admitted having fired
the pistol. He had been standing at his window with one
426 A RANDOM SHOT.
1867. or two friends the night before, looking at the pistol, and had
JEt. 82. fi rec j a COU pi e O f shots from it at the lighted window, but
not dreaming it would carry so far. I said : ' This is a serious
affair, and I can only see one way out of it. If Professor
Sedgwick presses the matter you may be rusticated. But,
though he is very angry, he is very kind-hearted. Go at once
to him, tell him you are the culprit, and ask him to forgive
you. He will probably tell you his opinion in very plain
words at first, and then relent.' Off he went, and in no long
time came back to say that the Professor had been very kind,
and did not wish anything more said. Presently Sedgwick
came himself to say that he had seen the culprit, and did
not wish me to take any further notice of the offence." As
Sedgwick put it : " The offender promises hereafter not to
mistake an old Professor for a Butt."
Sedgwick gave the course of lectures alluded to in the
last letter, " without much fatigue, and kept a small class well
together 1 ." He also attended the annual dinner of the
Cambridge Philosophical Society, and made a speech, as
heretofore.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
LONDON, February 8th, 1867.
"...On Tuesday last died Crabb Robinson, aged 92. He
was an old friend of mine with whom I first became acquainted
(in 181 1) at the house of Thomas Clarkson, who had laboured
so honourably in bringing about the abolition of the slave-
trade. That year I took my M.A. degree, and spent the
summer, with seven pupils, at Bury St Edmund's. In the
previous year I had become acquainted with Mr and Mrs
Clarkson, and they persuaded me to choose Bury St Edmund's
as the place where I should fix myself for the summer. It
was a very happy summer. I was in glorious, youthful,
health ; in joyful exuberance of spirits ; and I had excellent
society. Mrs Clarkson was a very agreeable and well-informed
1 To Rev. P. B. Brodie, 6 February, 1867.
DEATH OF CRABB ROBINSON. 427
woman a great personal friend of all the Lake poets. She 1867.
told me much about the private life, manners, and opinions of &*- 82 -
Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Charles Lamb, etc. etc.,
and she was enchanted with poor Hartley Coleridge, whom
she only knew as a wonderful child. Crabb Robinson had
been called to the Bar, and was attending the Norfolk Circuit,
so he remained several days during the Bury Assizes. He
had spent the early years of his manhood in Germany, and
was upwards of thirty when he was called to the Bar.
Wordsworth was his greatest friend ; I might almost say the
object of his idolatry ; and he made a promise, that, if blessed
in his new profession of the Law, he would retire from it
so soon as he had saved a humble competence which would
enable him to lead a life of literary leisure. Wordsworth at
the same time made another promise, that, when Crabb
Robinson's plan of retirement was effected, they were to spend
one summer together in a tour through Germany, to visit its
poets, historians, and philosophers. I afterwards became
acquainted with the Lake poets, and I honoured them much,
though never an idolater of them. Many times I have heard
Wordsworth allude to this bargain with Robinson, as a dream
that would not be realized. ' Robinson,' he said, ' is working
on in his profession, and will never think of leaving the Bar,
and turning an idle man.' But, strange to tell, he did leave it
so soon as he had gained such a fortune as would enable him to
lead the simple life of a man of letters. And the tour in Ger-
many, after twenty years, was carried happily into effect.... 1 "
To Miss Bayne.
CAMBRIDGE, February i2th, 1867.
" You seem to be very happy in the selection of your
climate 2 . I was in Norfolk through the worst part of the
savage season. In the early part of it the first ten days of
1 Mr Robinson left the Bar in 1828. The tour with Wordsworth in France,
Italy, and Germany took place in 1837. Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson, 3 vols.
8vo. Lond. 1869, iii. 113 138.
2 Miss Bayne was spending the winter at Torquay.
428 SNOWED UP AT NORWICH.
1867. January I bore up bravely in the Rector's house at Faken-
Et. 82. h am Kind friends ; a warm old-fashioned Rectory ; blazing
fires ; merry children ; ice as smooth as a glass at the bottom
of the Rectory garden, with whirling skates seen from the
fireside where I sat such were the elements of my happy visit.
The visit ended, I went (as I thought for one day] to
Norwich. But I caught a dire cold on the way. The
weather became more formidable than ever; I felt as if my
blood were frozen. The snow fell in enormous accumulations.
For a full fortnight I was a prisoner to my room, and, day
after day, I saw no faces but those of my tall servant John
and my old housekeeper and her helper. My friends, how-
ever, gradually heard that the oldest gun in the Cathedral
battery was sticking in a snowdrift, and ran to help him out,
driving over the mountains of snow in sledges. Wheeled
carriages were quite out of question for several days. At
length, however, a thaw came, and so soon as I was declared
fit for travelling, I came back to Cambridge....
At Trinity I had an examination of my Geological Class,
which employed me, along with my Christmas bills, etc. for
nearly a week. These tasks done I went up to Town to
disentangle some legal business.... Would you believe it? I
longed excessively to go to one of the Pantomimes ! But the
angry state of my eyes, and the fear of a relapse of the
complaint which so sorely bothered my legs at Norwich,
prevented me from indulging the fancies of my second child-
hood. I did, however, see them by deputy. For my servant
went in my stead, to his great edification. I wish you, my
dear Bella, to remark, that by living to the age of 82 (I shall
count that number complete if I live till the 22nd of March),
I have contrived to pick up a stock of prudence !..."
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
NORWICH, February 14^, 1867.
"...What has brought me to this place? A letter telling
me that there is to be to-day a great meeting at the Town
SOLITUDE OF OLD AGE. 429
Hall to consider the steps to be taken for the reception of the 1867.
British Association in the summer of 1868. This is running ^t. 82.
in advance of Time, I think ; but better too soon than too
late. As Canon Sedgwick was once the President of the
Association (33 years since!) it was thought expedient that
he should show his youthful face at the meeting !..."
Not only did Sedgwick show his face, but he made his
voice heard in a vigorous speech, which probably did much to
stimulate the scientific enthusiasm of Norwich, then, as he
hints in some of his letters, somewhat lukewarm.
The next letter was called forth by a note of congratula-
tion on his eighty-second birthday. It gives a somewhat
painful picture of the lonely life which he was now compelled
to lead.
To Mrs Thompson.
TRIN. COLL. March 22nd, 1867.
My dear Mrs Thompson,
I am grateful, and send you my heart's true
thanks for your kind note. For several days I have been
living in absolute solitude, with the exception of the occasional
presence of my bedmaker and my servant. A man who
lives in college till he can count his eighty-second birthday
is sure to have outlived all the friends and companions of his
early life. But I have learnt to bear solitude, if I can have
access to books. But, alas ! my old eyes are in an angry
state, and hardly permit me to read by candlelight. This is a
great trial. Let me not murmur. Rather let me bless God
for his long-suffering. Old and solitary as I am the post has
proved that I am not quite forgotten, for I have had love-
letters falling about me like flakes of snow. And I thank
God that my heart is not yet so hardened that I cannot feel
very kindly emotions when I read the congratulations sent
me by youthful ringers, at the dictation of youthful and
joyful hearts. I must write no more now, my eyes tell me
to stop.
430 TOUR TO THE WEST OF ENGLAND.
1867. May God make the Lodge the habitation of domestic
t. 82. j ovej anc i a u earthly honour, for many many years to come
for many after I have been called away from human
sight.
Truly and gratefully yours,
A. SEDGWICK.
To Mrs Norton.
PARSONAGE, DENT, July 17^, 1867.
My dear Cousin,
I am more feeble in muscular strength than I was
last year, though in far better general health ; I am more
deaf, more dim-sighted, more incapable of any severe and
continued mental effort. But I try to thank God for the gift
of long life. For He has taught me to love my friends, and
kept alive that love until now, with, I think, an undiminished
warmth. But nearly all the objects of my early love are
gone from my sight, and now I am reaping my best social
joys among my nephews and nieces, and their merry children.
Eight young, happy, merry children are here ; and the old
parsonage is as noisy and full of glee as it was 70 years
since....
Such was my nervous infirmity in the autumn of last
year that I could not even bear to dictate letters. I at one
time thought, and my medical advisers thought, as they now
tell me, that my tale of life was nearly counted ; but I rallied
wonderfully at the seaside, on the northern coast of Norfolk,
and with a little help from my assistant-naturalist I was able
to give my 49th 1 course of lectures. Should my health
permit it, I hope to give my 5<Dth course during the next
Michaelmas Term, and then it will be time for me to strike
work as a public servant....
I have come to this dear old Parsonage, after a charming
and instructive tour with my niece Isabella, through some of
the sweetest counties in this island. We visited the delicious
scenery of the Wye and the Severn the grand mediaeval
1 Really his 48th course.
REFORM BILL. 431
ruins of the castles of Raglan, Chepstow, and Ludlow 1867.
famous for deeds of heroism, and alas, infamous for deeds of &* 82 -
blood done within them. And the history of such spots
belongs to you, as well as to us. We visited too, some fields
of ancient battles during the Wars of the Roses ; and we
examined with deep interest the tombs and architectural
monuments of six of our cathedrals, and the ruins of two
or three of our famous abbeys Tintern Abbey much the
most charming, though we have two in the north of England
which I think match it in beauty, grandeur, and antiquarian
interest. I am sure you must have read Wordsworth's poem
on Revisiting Tintern Abbey. Of all his shorter poems it is,
I think, the most popular in Old England.
I was interrupted by an incursion of youthful barbarians
who cared nothing for Tintern Abbey, or any scenery on the
face of the earth, but were intensely happy, and in the full
tide of youthful health, and in the sounds of their own merry
voices, and they certainly did not make me melancholy. Yet
our weather here, after some weeks of brightest sunshine, has
become so cold, damp, and dismal, as to give any ordinary
man a fit of ' doleful dumps/ and I was fain to catch a gleam
of joy from the bright young faces. Yesterday the new
' Reform Bill ' passed our House of Commons, and I think
the very sky is putting on mourning at the result ; certain I
am that we are taking a most dangerous leap in the dark.
We have a glorious civilization the issue of many a hard-
fought battle ; in practical life we have ample freedom ; in
speculative freedom we can let our thoughts run in perfect
free will ; we have an enormous capital and all is now put
to risk. All my long life, till now, I have been strongly on
the liberal side ; but, with good old whigs, I wished the old
elements of King, Lords, and Commons to keep their well-
balanced places in the adjustment and conservation of our
nation's liberties. I am now an old croaker, and fear that all the
great elements of policy which have made old England what
she is are in the utmost peril. And there are other public signs
432 CHANGE OF POLITICS.
1867. of coming sorrow and decay : the rank infidelity and vile
i. 82. materialism of many clever but shallow writers ; the latitu-
dinarianism of one set who would roll out the fundamental
doctrines of our faith into gold-leaf which is only fit to gild
gingerbread ; the bigotry of another large set ; the coxcombry
and popish apery of numerous clergymen of the Church of
England. All these things often sink my spirits into the mire,
and compel me to think that (agreeably to a heathen saying)
God is turning us into a nation of fools and madmen, because
He means to crush us utterly in the end.
I declare, my sheet is done. Neither my old eyes nor my
blighted head would bear a march over another page ; so
adieu, my dear cousin,
Your very aged, but true hearted,
and affectionate friend,
ADAM SEDGWICK.
To the same.
August 27th, 1867.
" ...As Mr Norton is a part of yourself, I send my love
and my blessings to him, though I have not had the happi-
ness of ever seeing him. I beg his pardon. I have seen him
in his writings a thousand times better view of that which
gives him the likeness of God's image, than a mere peep at
his face, which is but his soul's mask a part of that which
Shakespeare calls our ' muddy vesture of decay.'
All my long life I have been called a liberal ; all my votes
since I came to manhood have been called liberal till now.
But now I am a stiff- backed tory, and I think that our
liberals are turned raving mad, and that a good-hearted old
man should not sail in the same boat with them. So I mean
to set up for myself under some new name...."
In the course of our narrative we have more than once
noticed Sedgwick's high respect for the character and attain-
ments of the Prince Consort. When he received, in March
EARLY YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 433
1866, the then privately printed volume called The Early 1867.
Years of the Prince Consort, he regretted that it would be ^ 8? -
read by only a privileged few. " In regard to the effect of the
volume upon the people of England," he wrote to General
Grey, " should Her Majesty hereafter resolve to publish it,
there cannot, I think, be the shadow of a doubt that it would
exalt the loyalty and love of all true-hearted Englishmen....
We now see, from first to last, the beautiful consistency of the
Prince's character. He was a lovely boy with a gentle
temper ; yet even then he had a mental strength above
his years, which gave him the mastery over his elder brother.
And so it was in after-life. Those gentler qualities which
made him the purest pattern of domestic love, never, for a
moment, degenerated into feebleness or effeminacy, but were
carried out into a noble purpose, by their unbroken union
with the firm will of his great and unselfish heart... If it be
good for man, as is taught by the poet Goethe, daily to see
and to feast upon objects of great beauty in art and nature,
surely the contemplation of a character at once so great and
so beautiful as that of the Prince Consort, should be a sublime
and touching lesson to our countrymen 1 ."
In June, 1867, the volume was published, and portions of
Sedgwick's letter were printed in the Preface. " I thought,"
wrote General Grey, " and, what you will think more to the
purpose, the Queen thought, your appreciation of the Prince's
character so beautifully expressed, that she wished your own
words to go forth for the advantage of the Public ; and then
the impression which you described the perusal of the book
as producing upon yourself, was so encouraging, that the
desire to introduce the volume as it were under your
patronage, was not to be resisted ; and who shall say how far
you may not have contributed to its present success?...
The success has certainly been beyond my most sanguine
expectations, and you ought to rejoice more especially at
1 Early Years of H. R. H. the Prince Consort. 8vo. London, 1867, pp.
x xii.
S. II. 28
434 CONCLUDING LECTURE OF FORTY-NINTH COURSE.
1867. this, for your opinion was the one which had the chief
t. 82, influence in deciding the publication 1 ...."
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, December Stti, 1867.
"...On Friday I gave my usual lecture. As I could not
finish all I had to say, I appointed my class to meet me again
at 12 o'clock yesterday, and I had a lecture of an hour and a
half, which went off well. The act of lecturing does me
good, if I can only have a hot bath immediately after it...
Monday, December tyh, 5.15 a.m.... I must now eat my
second breakfast, and think about my parting lecture. May
God be with me, and give me strength and memory and
a right mind, so that, while I review the labours of the
past term, I may prove that all parts of nature are under
the rule of a Law ' whose seat is the bosom of God, and
whose voice is the harmony of the world ; ' and that I may
make my young men see by the light of reason and of
conscience that the solid earth itself and all within its dark
mysterious caverns 'is a rich storehouse for the glory of
the Creator and the relief of man's estate!'
6.30 p.m. My lecture went off well, and it lasted more
than an hour and a half. I did all, or nearly all, that I
wished to do. My lungs are sound and good, and my
young men gave me a very animated greeting. I recapitu-
lated pointed out the proofs of wisdom and design through
all nature, and its subordination to Law enlarged on the
folly of the Darwinian theory, and its inevitable tendency
to rank materialism and, partly by quotations from Newton,
Bacon, Hooker, and the Bible, showed the manner in which
natural science might be wedded to moral conclusions..."
The following letter, written to Miss Sedgwick
Dr G. H. Ainger, son to her uncle's old friend, gives a
pleasant glimpse of Sedgwick at the end of 1867.
1 From General Grey, 9 August. 1867.
.
TRINITY COLLEGE COMMEMORATION. 435
From Rev. G. H. Ainger. 1868.
ST BEES, January ind, 1868. ^t. 83.
"...During the intervals [of my daughter's examination] we
contrived to see a good deal ; and especially, your good uncle,
whom we found, I am most happy to say 'in great force.' I left
Caroline at Ely on the Saturday (14 December) and went over
to dine in Hall at the Commemoration Feast. In the absence
of the Master your uncle presided, and made a number of speeches,
quite like himself and was well appreciated by all the seniors
like myself, as well as the juniors i.e. the College Prizemen, who
were guests, and who will long remember, I doubt not, and talk of
their privilege to hear the kind genial hearty old gentleman, as he
poured himself forth, on all sorts of topics, lighting up the simple
invitation 'to go into the Combination Room for Coffee,' with
the brilliancy of his eloquence as well as the more heart-stirring
toast of the prosperity of the College.
Caroline and I found him in his Museum on Monday morning.
We saw him at various times till Thursday, when my boy the sailor
William, his godson, joined us on his way from Dartmouth. We
dined with him in his rooms, along with a cousin of mine, Arthur,
and young Airy and again had an early dinner, nominally lunch,
on Friday, before we started for Whittlesea. You know his charming
manner with young people ; and nothing could be kinder than he
was to mine and I am sure they will always remember it..."
At the Commemoration here referred to Sedgwick, who,
as Mr Ainger's letter indicates was in the best health and
spirits, said to the undergraduates : " I'm glad they've given
you champagne ! it will warm the cockles of your young
hearts! I hope you'll indulge in a wise hilarity!" It is
almost superfluous to add that they followed his advice.
In the year 1868 Sedgwick printed, for private circulation,
the Memorial by the Trustees of Cowgill Chapel, from the
preface and appendices to which we have quoted his delightful
reminiscences of Dent in former days. When the chapel was
consecrated (31 October, 1838), the requisite documents were
in readiness, and approved by the Bishop of Ripon ; viz. the
deeds of trust and endowment ; the title-deeds of the freehold
on which the chapel stood ; and a map on which the district
of the chapel was defined. These documents were taken
away by the Bishop's secretary for registration ; but, early
in 1864, the trustees, of whom Sedgwick was the senior,
learnt, to their great dismay, that no registration had taken
282
436 CASE OF COWGILL CHAPEL.
1868. place, and that their right of patronage, together with the
t ' 83 ' right of the chapel to a district, had both been lost. Under
these circumstances, they transferred the patronage to the
Bishop; and took steps "to procure, on the award of the Eccle-
siastical Commissioners, the reappointment of a district 1 ."
After some negotiation and a protest from Sedgwick against
the district first suggested 2 the boundaries were satisfactorily
settled, and the award, confirmed by the Queen in Council,
was published in The London Gazette, 12 September, i865 3 .
So confident were the trustees that the matter was now
unalterably settled, that they did not take steps to procure a
copy of the award, as printed ; and it was not until June,
1866, that they learnt that the document directed a change
in the name of the chapelry, which was henceforth to be
called, "The District Chapelry of Kirkthwaite." Sedgwick
was extremely indignant, and with good reason. By a stroke
of the pen the whole history of the chapel was to be erased.
" It had been consecrated ; it had a name which had become
endeared, as a household word, by daily use ; and its congre-
gation had attended its sacred services for a quarter of a cen-
tury. In such a case assuredly no change ought to have been
made in the names of the chapel and the chapelry without
very cogent reasons 4 ." These reasons appeared to him and
his co-trustees to be wholly wanting ; and, worst of all, the
name Kirkthwaite was erroneous. " There is no district within
the boundaries of Dent called Kirkthwaite," says the Memo-
rial. "There is a Hamlet called Kirthwaite; but that Hamlet
is not the District laid down by the Award 5 ." They therefore
addressed a Memorial to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners
(29 'December, 1866), in which the history of the chapel and
the orthography of Kirthwaite are ably and conclusively
discussed. It closes with a "loyal and earnest prayer: (i)
that the Award... may be so modified that its verbal contra -
1 Memorial, p. 10. 2 Ibid. pp. 27 29.
3 It is printed as Appendix II. to the Memorial.
4 Memorial, p. 13. 5 Ibid. p. 3.
PUBLICATION OF THE MEMORIAL. 437
dictions may disappear, and the error in the orthography 1868.
of the word Kirkthwaite may be corrected ; (2) that the name ^- 8 3-
of Cowgill Chapel be fully retained ; (3) that its District
be named (as it was named in the three first successive
Presentations) the Chapelry of Cowgill 1 ."
The Commissioners replied (7 March, 1867), in courteous
language, that the Cure was completely formed, and that they
had no "power of altering the title under which a District may
have been legally created 2 ." Sedgwick at once determined to
print the Memorial for private circulation among "the States-
men and Inhabitants of the Valley of Dent, and the present
Representatives of those kind and generous friends who
subscribed to the Building and Endowment Funds of Cowgill
Chapel." Before doing so, however, he fortunately determined
to add to it some essays on the climate, history, and dialects
of Dent. These grew as he worked at them, sitting, as he
tells us, in his armchair, and dictating to his servant ; so that
nearly a year elapsed before the little volume bound in green
cloth " the child of my old age, dressed in an old-fashioned
dress of a child of the Dales 3 " could set out on its travels.
It had a remarkable experience. A copy found its way
to the Deanery of Westminster, and presently Lady Augusta
Stanley wrote to say that the Queen would like to see one.
Before long Her Majesty, through General Grey, sent "her
very sincere thanks." with an intimation that the prayer of
the Memorial appeared to her just and reasonable, and that she
would communicate with the Archbishop of York, in order
that a new Council might be held for the purpose of restoring
the original name to the chapelry of Cowgill. Sedgwick, as
was only natural, was greatly delighted at this unexpected
turn of events in his favour. " I declare that while I was
dictating my pamphlet/' he wrote, " I should as soon have
thought of directing it, by the Book Post, to the Planet
Neptune, as to Balmoral ! Had I known that it would be
1 Memorial, p. 24. 2 Ibid. p. 33.
3 To Mrs Philpott, 29 May, 1868.
438 MR LONGFELLOW AT CAMBRIDGE.
1868. read by my Sovereign I should not have dared to write about
Et. 83. the old tailor or wig-maker, and about the ' night-sittings '
and the ' cryings-out ' in Dent. And it would not have been
half so spicey as it is ! ' All's well that ends well 1 '."
The Archbishop made no difficulty, but some delay
ensued, for it turned out that the authority of Parliament
had to be invoked. Mr Gladstone, then Prime Minister,
took the matter up ; the Bill, introduced by the Archbishop
in the House of Lords, had Ministerial support in the House
of Commons; and in July, 1869, the "District Chapelry of
Kirkthwaite" was changed for ever into the "District Chapelry
of CowgillV
Sedgwick promptly printed an Appendix to the Memorial,
for circulation among his Dalesmen. The previous work was
a tale of sorrow, but this is a tale of triumph sobered a little
by the thought of his increasing age but still a joyful
statement of what his Dalesmen owed " to the love of right
and the condescending goodwill of our gracious Sovereign 3 ."
During the spring of 1868 Sedgwick had been made
miserable by an unusually severe attack of bronchitis, but
he got well again when summer came round, and was able
to follow his usual pursuits, and to take interest in what was
going forward in the University.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, June \6th, 1868.
"...This morning I was going to start with Keeping foi
Potton, that we might pick up the teeth of sharks the
back-plates of turtles the claws of gigantic crocodiles etc.
when I received notice that the poet Longfellow would this
day appear in person to receive an honorary degree. S<
I bustled off old Keeping, and called at Caius College Lodge,
where Professor Longfellow is staying. A good-looking,
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 27 October, 1868.
' 2 Supplement to the Memorial, pp. 2 5.
3 Appendix to the Memorial, p. 6.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT NORWICH. 439
well-bred man with a long, whitish, beard. I told him 1868.
that as an American he was our cousin ; and that through ^- 8
o
his works of genius he had a place in the heart of every
well-educated Englishman. So we greeted him, not as a
stranger, but as a personal friend whom we loved to honour.
At i p.m. I am to lunch at Caius Lodge that I may quietly
meet the poet..."
In July, Sedgwick met with an accident, which kept him
a prisoner for many months. " Since last July," he wrote to
Sir John Herschel nearly a year afterwards, "when I over-
taxed my powers of walking and climbing among my native
hills, I have lost my power of taking healthy exercise. I
gave my left knee an ugly twist while clambering up a
precipice, along with a set of my grand-nephews and nieces,
after we had descended to look at a great hole in the rocky
watercourse called ' Hell's Cauldron.' I found it true now as
it was in classic times. Easy enough to go down to Avernus ;
but to come back again there is the trial and the tug, as my
poor old left knee found to its long sorrow ! I had a very
sensible warning at the time ; but I neglected it, till the
wearing uneasiness became aggravated into terrible pain,
and I only saved the knee-joint by very active and painful
treatment 1 ."
In consequence of this mishap Sedgwick was obliged
to stay at home while the British Association was meeting
at Norwich. " I sat in state," he records, " like an emperor,
with my left leg resting on a superb cushion." But his
scientific friends did not forget him. " But for a severe
accident," said Dr Hooker in his Presidential Address, " there
would have been present here to-night the oldest surviving,
and indeed the first but two of the Presidents of the Associa-
tion. My geological friends will understand to whom I allude
the Rock of Science, in whom age, and the heat and shocks of
scientific controversy, have wrought no metamorphosis and
1 To Sir J. F. W. Herschel, 12 June, 1869.
440 FIFTIETH COURSE OF LECTURES.
1868. developed no cleavage-planes a man of whom both Norwich
t. 83. an d the Association are proud your Canon, our Father,
Sedgwick 1 ."
In October Sedgwick delivered his fiftieth annual course
of lectures. The occasion might well have been celebrated
as a jubilee ; for his lectures had never once been interrupted
since his election to the Woodwardian Chair. As he advanced
in years, they seemed to animate him, and during the term in
which he lectured he was frequently in better health than at
any other season. " My lectures keep me alive," was his not
unfrequent remark ; and after one of the first of this very
course he writes : " I addressed my class for a full hour with
as much spirit and pleasure to myself as I did forty years
since." In the opening lecture he showed that notwithstanding
his great age, his mind had not lost its elasticity. He began,
we are told, somewhat as follows : " Gentlemen, I have
hitherto, in the successive courses of lectures delivered from
this chair in the discharge of my duty as Woodwardian
Professor, always maintained, in opposition to my distinguished
friend, Sir Charles Lyell, that man, geologically speaking, is
of very recent appearance on the earth. But, during the last
Long Vacation, I have gone again over the whole evidence,
including much new matter of great importance, and am now
bound to admit that I can no longer maintain the position
which I have hitherto held. I must freely admit that man is
of a far higher antiquity than that which I have hitherto
assigned to him. But, Gentlemen, I shall always protest
against that degrading hypothesis which attributes to man an
origin derived from the lower animals " and then came
a vehement denunciation of the Darwinian theory in its
application to the human race 2 .
In November he was saddened by the news of the death
1 Report of the British Association, 1868, p. LIX. The Dean of Norwich had
been particularly anxious that Sedgwick should preach before the Association.
2 Communicated by Sedley Taylor, M,A. of Trinity College, who heard the
lecture.
DEATH OF LADY MURCHISON. 441
of John Ruthven. " I have had a letter," he writes on 1869.
November /th, " to tell me that my old companion in many ^- 8 4-
a hardworking journey over the hills (good old honest John
Ruthven) died yesterday in London. Little did I expect to
outlive him ! so strong was he last time I saw him ; and he
was six or seven years younger than myself. The news
made me very sorrowful 1 ."
Not long after Sedgwick wrote these words, Lady Murchi-
son passed away. For some years he had been completely
estranged from her husband. Since the meeting of the British
Association at Manchester in 1861 they had probably not
seen each other ; and the few letters that had passed between
them were not of a nature to make reconciliation probable.
Common friends had done their best, without success. " It
is not a simple question of forgiving an injury," wrote Sedg-
wick. " I owe Sir R. Murchison no ill-will personally 2 ."
Murchison, on the other hand, had more than once expressed
his own anxiety for reconciliation : " It would give me the
sincerest satisfaction, if any explanation which I can possibly
give would be acceptable to you, and put an end to an
estrangement which for more than twenty years I have
never ceased to lament 3 ." To this particular letter one of
many expressed in nearly similar terms Sedgwick probably
sent no reply. But, when he heard that Lady Murchison was
no more, the thoughts of former days came back to his mind,
and, separating the man from the geologist, he wrote to her
husband :
To Sir R. I. Murchison.
CAMBRIDGE,
Sunday Morning, February 2ist, 1869.
Dear Sir Roderick Murchison,
I did not wish to intrude myself on your sorrows
too soon. Indeed such has been my life of solitude for the
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 7 November, 1868.
2 To Lady Affleck, 25 September, 1862.
3 From Sir R. I. Murchison, 7 January, 1869.
442 DEATH OF LADY MURCHISON.
1869. last two months, that incidents of the greatest interest to my
JEt. 84. heart have more than once passed away for a full week or ten
days before their report reached me. You will, I know, believe
me, when I say that the first news of your beloved wife's
death filled me with very deep sorrow. For many many
years Lady Murchison was one of the dearest of those friends
whose society formed the best charms of my life. How often
was I her guest ! How often have I experienced her kind
welcome, and been cheered and strengthened by it ! In joy
or in sorrow she was my kind and honoured lady friend.
And have I forgot those bright, and to me, thrice happy
days, when she and you were my guests at Cambridge ? The
present has comparatively little for me now. Hope I have
for the future, and I trust that God will give it to me in the
last hours of this world's life whenever they may come. But
an old man necessarily has his thoughts carried to the past.
But oh ! how many of the dearest and sweetest remembrances
of my life are now blended with clouds of sorrow ! It must
be so. It is nature's own law. May God teach you to bear
your sorrow like a man. Of this I have no fear ; but more
than this, may His grace be given you to bear it like a Chris-
tian. This sustaining power is His precious gift, and it must
be humbly sought for, by prostration of heart, while under
God's afflicting hand. May He give you the comfort of
Christian hope ; compared with it all other comfort vanishes
into mid-air. And if it indeed be given you, sorrow will lose
its bitterness, and even be tempered with joy....
I generally dictate my long letters to my servant, but in
writing this letter of sympathy, addressed to you in your
hours of sorrow, I could not find in my heart to use the pen
of an amanuensis. My eyes are now very angry. I remain,
in all Christian sympathy and goodwill, faithfully yours,
A. SEDGWICK 1 .
In the spring of 1869 Sedgwick's niece Isabella took a
1 The whole letter is printed in Geikie's Life of Murchison ^ ii. 337 339.
MISS SEDGWICK'S ITALIAN TOUR. 443
tour in Italy with some intimate friends. The plan had her ^869.
uncle's warm approval ; in fact he was the first to suggest it, ^ l - 8 4-
and to combat her unwillingness to leave him and others to
whom her help was needful. During her absence he kept her
informed, by almost daily letters, of all that was passing in
the home-circle. He seemed anxious to prove that he was as
capable, as he was willing, to take her place. The minutest
details are gone into. Comforts for the sick, schemes of
education and amusement for the healthy, comments on
passing events and current literature, suggestions as to what
she should pay attention to on the continent, and comments
on her descriptions, fill a series of delightful letters. The
labour of writing them must have been severe, for during the
spring months, as we know from another source, he could
" hardly bear to read or write by daylight, and not at all by
candlelight 1 ." And yet, as though he wished to spare her all
anxiety on his account, he says but little of himself in the
correspondence. It will be readily understood that most of
these letters are unsuitable for a biography, and we can
therefore only cite one or two short passages from them.
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, April 14^, 1869.
" The post of yesterday brought me two letters which
gave me joy, and gladness of heart. One from Mary, telling
me that she was better.... The other was from Turin, and I
darted on it like a hungry hawk upon a skylark. I had some
little anxiety about your passage over Mt. Cenis. Thank
God you have all made the traverse in safety. And how
could you find time to write me such a long and charming
letter, after such fatigue and excitement, and in the midst of
such a succession of sublime objects ? Don't you, and every
one of you, feel better and nearer God for having been per-
mitted to gaze upon all the sublimest features of His creation
in our lower world?... Touching your uncle Adam, he's 'as
1 To Archdeacon Musgrave, 19 June, 1869.
444 MISS SEDGWICK'S ITALIAN TOUR.
1869. well as can be expected.' His eyes are much better, and he
Et. 84. sometimes writes his own letters. His left knee is a down-
right cheat, for it looks well and healthy, yet it works ill ; and
if taxed beyond a few hundred yards, turns as restive as an
old Irish post-horse...."
To the same.
CAMBRIDGE, April 2oth, 1869.
"...For many a long year I have been dreaming of the
Maritime Alps, of the Gulf of Genoa, of Rome, of Naples, etc. ;
and while dreaming of such glorious sights the evening of my
days has been closing in upon me, and I am now, alas ! quite
incapable of joining my friends in such a tour as that from
which you are reaping hourly joy, and feeding your senses
and your imagination with sights and thoughts which, with
God's blessing, will make you happier, and holier, and more
loving to those around you to the end of your life....
Were you not struck with the cathedral at Sienna ? It is
said to be one of the finest specimens existing of the old
Italian Gothic. And now you are all at Rome. Did not
your heart beat higher when you saw the dome of St Peter's,
and entered the streets of Rome? But you will tell me.
And tell me your first impressions. They may be right, or
they may be wrong, but it is charming to hear of the first
impressions on the mind of those we love and can trust...
I am very happy in the belief that you are laying in a
goodly stock of rational happiness. God does not permit me
to cross the Alps in my old age. But He does permit me
to gaze on the glorious scenery and historical monuments
of Italy through the eyes of one whom I regard as my
daughter...."
To Mrs Somerville.
CAMBRIDGE, April 2ist, 1869.
My dear Mrs Somerville,
I heard, when I was last in London, that you
were still in good bodily health, and in the full fruition of
LETTER TO MRS SOMERVILLE. 445
your great intellectual strength, while breathing the sweet air 1869.
of Naples. I had been a close prisoner to my college rooms &*- 8 4-
through the past winter and early spring ; but I broke from
my prison-house at the beginning of this month, that I might
consult my oculist, and meet my niece on her way to Italy.
I do not wish to obtrude her (or any of her friends) upon
you, that they should take up your precious time, but I know
you will forgive me for my anxiety to hear from a living
witness that you are well, and happy in the closing days of
your honoured life ; and for my longing desire that my
beloved daughter (for such I ever regard her) should speak to
you face to face, and see (for however short an interview),
the Mrs Somerville, of whom I have so often talked with her
in terms of honest admiration and deep regard.... Since you
and Dr Somerville were here, my dear and honoured guests,
Cambridge is greatly changed. I am left here, like a vessel
on its beam-ends, to mark the distance to which the current
has been drifting during a good many bygone years. I have
outlived nearly all my early friends ; Whewell, Master of
Trinity, was the last of the old stock who was living here.
Herschel has not been here for several years. Babbage was
here for a day or two during the year before last. The Astro-
nomer-Royal belongs to a more recent generation. He is in
vigorous health, and is now giving us a voluntary short course
of lectures upon Magnetism. For many years long attacks
of suppressed gout have made my life very unproductive.
Any sedentary labour on my part is almost sure to bring
alarming attacks of vertigo. I yesterday dined in Hall. It
was the first time I was able to meet my Brother Fellows
since last Christmas Day. A long attack of bronchitis,
followed by a distressing inflammation of my eyes, had made
me a close prisoner for nearly four months. But, thank God,
I am again beginning to be cheery, and with many infirmities
(the inevitable results of old age, for I have entered on my
85th year) I am still strong in general health, and capable
of enjoying as much, I think, as ever, the society of those
446 VISIT FROM MR AND MRS NORTON.
869. whom I love, be they young or old. May God preserve and
t. 84. ki ess y OU ! And whensoever it may be His will to call you
away to Himself, may your mind be without a cloud, and
your heart full of joyful Christian hope !
I remain, my dear Friend,
Faithfully and gratefully yours,
ADAM SEDGWICK *.
To Miss Maribell Sedgwick.
TRINITY COLLEGE,
Wednesday, May igtk, 1869.
"...On Monday and yesterday I was engaged with a
party of three American friends ; Mr Norton, a well-known
man of letters, Mrs Norton nee Sedgwick, and her sister Miss
Sedgwick, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. They are very
agreeable, well-informed, persons and I think they were
happy while here. Mr Norton was delighted to meet two or
three of our clever men, with whose works he was well
acquainted... In the evening the Ray Club will assemble in
my rooms. It is a melancholy thought that this will be my
last Club meeting. For the infirmities of old age compel
me to resign my place in the club. The chief object of
the meetings is to discuss subjects connected with Natural
History...."
A friend who was present at one of the parties Sedgwick
gave on this occasion, remembers that he entertained his
American cousins with the hilarity and vigour of twenty
years before. And he himself wrote : " I think we were all
very happy. I can answer for one. We mustered ten a
pleasant, noisy, merry party, with some good talk about
books, old and new."
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
CAMBRIDGE, May 2$th, 1869.
"...My lameness continues. I am incapable of taking
the wonted exercise by which I used to fight against my old
1 Printed in Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville^ 8vo. Lond. 1873.
COMMENCEMENT IN FORMER DAYS. 447
and inveterate enemy in the months of spring and early 1869.
summer suppressed gout. From the crown of my head to the &*- 8 4-
soles of my feet I am penetrated, at this season, by gout It
prevents all kindly emotions ; makes me sour and selfish ;
incapable of labour, yet never at rest ; dull as ditch-water,
yet abominably irritable and waspish ; incapable of continued
thought bent to any good purpose ; my memory refusing
to do its hourly duty, yet stored with gloomy, worthless
images ; my moral sense perverted. Such has been my state
lately for several hours of each successive day. By a strange
physical perversity I am restless while in bed, and stupid
while I am up. Several times, while writing this sheet, I
have been nodding through much sleepiness. If the weather
were genial, I could drive about in a carriage, and I should
hope, like a snake, to come out of my miserable envelope and
become myself again. So enough more than enough about
the old Adam...."
To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
CAMBRIDGE, June 17^, 1869.
"...The College is now nearly empty; but this was, in
former times, a gay season, because the young Masters of
Arts were compelled to appear personally to be what was
called Created ; a form by which they were entered in the
University books as Gremials, and gained their votes in our
Senate. Without such appearance, they were called Non-
Gremial Masters of Arts, and had no votes. All this needless
cost was done away after the last revision of our statutes,
when I sat, as you know, upon the Royal Commission. At
this season, in bygone days, all was bright and gay, as the
young M.A.'s often brought their wives and sisters, and we
had a week of festivities, and dances, and concerts ; and,
every third year, there was a Grand Commencement, when we
had, during the week, three Oratorios and one or two concerts.
At these festivals I heard Billington, Catalani, Bartleman,
Braham, etc. persons in their way unmatched. I declare
they seemed to lift the audience off the earth. But I had
448 DISESTABLISHMENT OF IRISH CHURCH.
1869. more levity then than now, and was, on that account, more
t. 8 4 . easily lifted...."
To Mrs Norton.
CAMBRIDGE, June 2ist, 1869.
"...During the whole of the past week we were busy with
the great debate in our House of Lords. My eyes were not
equal to the task of reading it, but I listened to my servant,
who has learnt to read well for me, and he read to me nearly
all the leading speeches. They prove that the might of
eloquence has not left our Upper House; and they have
come to a right conclusion. The Established Church of
Ireland was a portentous anomaly in English history. But
it is easier to pull down than to build up, and with the
bold democratic spirit of Bright and his party, who have
not a grain of patriotic respect for the old institutions of
our country, I look forward to coming events with much
anxiety...."
To Mrs Norton and Miss Sedgwick.
LOWESTOFF, Jttly 8///, 1869.
"...I was just going to end by signing my name when I
glanced at the two letters before me. One of them (if my
eyes cheat me not) ends with the words Sara Sedgwick. I
have another young unmarried cousin who lives at Caithness
at the very northern extremity of Scotland. She signs her
name Sara Russel. Old men like myself love old customs
and old names. If Abraham was the father of the faithful,
his lawful wife was the mother of them. His name was a
name of honour, and her name, Sarah, was given her by
divine appointment as a name also of honour. It means
Queen, or some rank of high chieftainship. Why then be
ashamed of a name that dates very nearly 2000 years B.C.; a
truly aristocratic date that puts to shame all the aristocratic
blazonry of Europe ? Besides, I have a great affection for
the letter 1i, It introduces us to health, happiness, and
heaven. I am a deaf old man, but, had I a hundred ears
as good as those of my dear New England cousins, without
WEDDING GOOD-WISHES. 449
the letter h (at which they saucily turn up their noses) I could 1869.
get no hearing out of them. Forgive this trifling ' take it ^ 8 4-
not in snuff/ as Shakespeare says...."
To Charles de la Pryme, Esq.
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
November yd, 1869.
"...Your late father was one of my old friends. I
remember him as a kind friend in my schoolboy days, when
he was reading mathematics with Mr Dawson of Sedbergh.
He was at Cambridge five years my senior, but in after-life
we always pulled well together, and for him and your dear
mother I had a very kind regard. And it seemed as natural
as the rising of the sun that I should have a true-hearted
feeling of brotherly love for their children. I do sincerely and
heartily rejoice at the news you have sent me. May the
happiest fruits of Christian love be showered upon you both
to the end of life 1 You have made up your minds, you have
exchanged hearts, why therefore should you and the dear
Sophia wait a single day ? I don't write Miss ; one cannot
sound the word without hissing in a lady's face. Why, I say,
wait another day? In God's name, and in God's love, marry,
and be thrice happy ! I send you both an old man's blessing
the blessing of your late father's oldest living friend...."
To this letter Mr Pryme appends the following anecdote.
" I remember Professor Sedgwick coming to dine at my
father's house at Cambridge to meet a gentleman who
belonged to a celebrated Unitarian family. In the evening
he ventured on a controversial excursion, little knowing who
was listening. Sedgwick listened for a while, and then broke
out with great vehemence : ' Sir ! rather than attack and
mutilate the Scriptures as your Unitarian friends do, I would
prefer to disbelieve the whole Book of Revelation as an
Inspired Work, and to put myself at once on my moral
conscience as a guide for life and conduct!'"
The two next extracts have reference to Sedgwick's
lectures for this year.
S. II. 29
450 JUBILEE OF PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
1869. TO Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
jEt. 84.
CAMBRIDGE, November 6th, 1869.
"...Yesterday I gave my eighth lecture, with great
pleasure to myself, and I believe with pleasure to my class of
both sexes, for I have at least a dozen steady pupils of the
softer sex. Yesterday the petticoats mustered full twenty,
and the pantaloon-wearing bipeds about thirty. When I had
done my regular lecture of an hour and a quarter, I went
down to our basement floor to shew the big skeletons, and
bones that are too big to be brought up to my lecture-room,
and then I gave a kind of second lecture. So that I did not
get back to my rooms before 2 p. m. I was a little tired, but
not too much to enjoy my simple good dinner at 2.30 p.m.;
and through the evening I was quite canty...."
To the same.
November 26th.
"...I begin to think I see land. Three more lectures
about strata and fossils, and a general concluding lecture
to-morrow week will fairly land me ; and I have stood the
course right well. It has, in very truth, done me much good.
When I am lecturing I am in a state of nature a second
nature which is the child of custom and I think after fifty
annual courses I may talk of custom..."
To the same.
CAMBRIDGE, November 8th, 1869.
" ...On Saturday last we celebrated the Anniversary
Dinner of our Philosophical Society. Last year I did not
venture to attend the dinner, but this year I had better heart,
for it was our Jubilee I am now the only one left of the
original members of the Society.... As a matter of course they
drank my health. I spoke at some length, and my speech
was received with hearty acclamations. I went in a carriage,
well muffled up, and caught no cold ; indeed the Combination
Room of Clare College (which was given to us upon the
occasion) was beautifully warm...."
1
SPEECH AGAINST UNIVERSITY TESTS. 451
In the course of this year the question of the abolition of 1869.
University Tests had once more come to the front ; and a ^ 8 4
meeting of those in favour of such a measure was held at
St John's College Lodge (29 November) with the view of
discussing the most appropriate method of bringing their
views under the notice of the Government. Sedgwick, as one
of the few survivors of those who had made an unsuccessful
movement in the same direction in 1834*, was of course
invited to be present. It was a question respecting which his
opinions had undergone no change, and he eagerly accepted
the invitation. The first resolution was proposed by the
Master of Trinity :
That in the opinion of this meeting the time has come for
settling the question of University Tests ; that the mode in which
this question is dealt with in the Permissive Bill introduced by Sir J.
Coleridge is open to grave objections ; and that any measure de-
signed to effect such a settlement should include an enactment that
no declaration of religious belief or profession shall be required of
any layman on obtaining a Fellowship, or as a condition of its tenure.
This was seconded by Sedgwick, who gave a brief history
of University tests with a graphic account of the movement
of 1834 and ended with some such words as these: "Though
I have outlived my friends, and now belong to no party, I
have not outlived my love of liberty. I believe that the
removal of tests would tend to perpetuate our great institu-
tions. Fears have been expressed of the possible predomi-
nance of Dissenters. That is a white-livered opinion. If
Dissenters should command a predominance of the intellect
of the nation, let them take the place to which they are
entitled. I am a Churchman because I believe the Church
of England to be right ; but I deprecate the University
hiding itself in any little nook of prejudice out of the general
spirit of the community 2 ."
This was Sedgwick's last appearance on a public occasion
in Cambridge.
1 See above, Vol. i. pp. 417 425.
2 The Cambridge Chronicle and The Cambridge Independent Press, 4 De-
cember, 1869.
29 2
CHAPTER VII.
(18701873.)
SEVERE ATTACK OF BRONCHITIS. LAST VISIT TO DENT. SPEECH
AT NORWICH. FIFTY-SECOND COURSE OF LECTURES (1870).
EMPLOYMENTS OF HIS OLD AGE. LAST DINNER-PARTY.
PURCHASE OF LECKENBY COLLECTION (1871). INTEREST IN
THE MUSEUM. PREFACE TO SALTER'S CATALOGUE (1872).
LAST WEEKS. DEATH AND FUNERAL. DEAN STANLEY'S
SERMON. MEMORIAL AT CAMBRIDGE. MEMORIAL AT DENT
(1873)-
PERSONAL APPEARANCE. PORTRAITS. LECTURES. REMINISCENCES
OF DAILY LIFE.
SEDGWICK began the year 1870 with unusual cheerfulness.
He felt well ; and was employed in writing the Appendix to
the Memorial, a task which he found neither disagreeable nor
fatiguing. " You see I have returned to work again," he
wrote, "and to-day I have dined in Hall quite a new thing;
and I do hope that I shall be able to continue to do so, for
indeed I am heartily tired of dining by myself, as I have
done almost ever since we broke up from Norwich. Our big
Hall was magnificently lighted, and only five persons to sit
down at the Fellows' table, and very few undergraduates !
In my time comparatively few went away during the Christ-
mas and Easter vacations, but the railroads have made such
a change ! While I was an undergraduate I never went up
to London nay, I never saw London till I was Fellow
of Trinity College, after six years of University residence
SERIOUS ATTACK OF BRONCHITIS. 453
What do you think of that?... I lead a very solitary life 1870.
during this dead part of the vacation, and my door is seldom &* 8 5-
opened except by John or my bed-maker. But the frost has
never found its way into my rooms. My feet are kept warm
by a good fire ; my heart keeps warm of itself 1 ."
These bright days were soon clouded by a long and
serious illness an attack of bronchitis which nearly brought
him to the grave, and from which, in fact, he never wholly
recovered. It was evidently something quite different, both
in severity and in duration, from those milder seizures to
which he had long been accustomed. " I never knew what
bronchitis was before," he told his niece. She hastened to
Cambridge to nurse him, and by the end of March he
considered himself convalescent.
To Lady Augusta Stanley.
April 2nd, 1870.
"...Yesterday was a great, day for me. I went out into
our Great Court (after a close confinement of more than
six weeks to my College rooms, during which I never once
crossed my threshold); and I felt such joy that I went on
to my Museum, and rested there awhile, and saw the remains
of some ancient monsters. But my knees failed me a little as
I came back, and I had hard work to climb to my own door.
Thank God ! I am now gaining strength hourly, and so soon
as I am fit for travelling I hope to station myself at some
warm place on our south coast, that I may be fanned by
the zephyrs, and have my ricketty framework warmed into
a new life...."
Soon afterwards, taking his great-nephew with him,
Sedgwick went for a few days to Bath, where his progress,
if his own report may be trusted, was wonderful. His spirits
rose to their usual high level, and he describes a visit to
Salisbury, " the queen of British cathedrals," as though he
did not know what illness was. But the improvement was
1 To Miss Maribell Sedgwick, 6 January, 12 January, 1870.
454 VISIT FROM DR LUSHINGTON.
1870. transient. He was ordered to Bournemouth, but the visit
8s * was a failure. Instead of helping him forward it thrust him
back ; and he returned to Cambridge little better than he had
left it. " One great change I find this year," he wrote soon
after his return ; " I do not recover my former strength after
I have ceased to be ill. I come to a resting-place, but that
resting-place is at a lower level than the one on which I had
been lately standing. This shews me that my vital powers
are now on the wane. Every day reminds me of this truth,
sometimes very oppressively ; but I endeavour to look up,
cheerfully and hopefully, and to be thankful 1 ."
To Miss Duncan.
WlNDERMERE, June ()tk, 1870.
"...I could not recover my health and natural spirits till
the wind chopped round to the west. But that change acted
on me like magic. My spirits and senses were alive again,
and I longed to be in Dent, which I had not visited for two
years. I really felt a home sickness (what the doctors, I
think, call a nostalgia) with painful intensity. But I was
detained one week by a promised visit from Dr Lushington ;
and a visit from a retired judge a Right Honourable, and
in his SQth year was no ordinary event. When quite a
young man he had rambled over our hills and dales, and
had shot grouse from his head-quarters at Gearstones a
wild little inn on the road from Dent's Head to Settle. It
happened that he had seen a copy of my pamphlets about
Dent, and felt a great desire to pay me a visit, that we might
talk about the Dales, and that he might once more have the
pleasure of dining in the Hall of Trinity College. This was
told me by his son. So I joyfully sent an invitation to them
both; and they came on the 3ist of last month. The old
man passed a very genial day amongst us, taking a leading
part in a varied conversation in the Hall and Combination
Room, and continuing it in my rooms afterwards till I was
1 To Miss Duncan, 21 May, 1870.
LAST VISIT TO DENT. 455
almost exhausted to my shame, for the Doctor is almost 1870.
four years older than myself..." ^Et. 85.
The visit to Dent the last he was ever able to effect was
a very short one. He was lame, and unable to walk about
among his old friends as heretofore. It happened that the
annual school-feast took place while he was there, and before
the children left he mounted on a stone bench in the yard of
the vicarage, and gave a very impressive address.
To Miss Herschel.
NORWICH, August 26th, 1870.
"...After my visit to the Dale of Dent came to a natural
end, I was tempted to go with Isabella and one of my
young great-nieces to a sweet village on the north shore of
Morecambe Bay. Though the north winds still were domi-
nant, yet the weather was dry ; and 'tis a damp wind that
tortures the hygrometrical skin I owe to an old hag of a
midwife. I will let you into a secret! In the year 1785 I was
introduced into this wicked, freezing, and fighting world by
an aged midwife, who wrapped my youthful person in a
hygrometrical envelope, which stuck so tightly to me that
(with all my rubbing, scraping, kicking, and plunging, for 85
long years) I have never been able to shake it off. Here it is
creased and fretted a little but as close a fit as ever !
So we all enjoyed ourselves at the sweet hotel of Grange.
O 'tis a lovely country ! The grey solemn-looking Carbo-
niferous Limestone is the prevailing feature, soft-toned and
exquisitely varied by sweetest natural woodland fringing the
shores of the famous Bay. Though I had hammered my way
through all corners of the neighbourhood in by-gone years
(especially 1822 and 1824), and had many times taken peeps
at it during my short northern visits of love and duty ; yet it
was now to me a new country, threaded by railways and
covered by towns and villages, where in your old uncle's early
days all was in silence and solitude. But this was not all, for
in multitudinous nooks and corners, instead of sweet scenery
456 COAST OF LANCASHIRE.
1870. and a bright atmosphere, we saw gigantic furnaces sending
Et * 8s ' into the sky a vapour so dark, that it seemed to have come
from the nostrils of Satan. In many places the ground was
blood-red ; and all around us smelt of fire and brimstone. In
fact our sweet village, the Grange a name telling one of corn
and rural comfort borders on Low Furness a country long
famous for its iron ore ; and truly now, on actual proof, many
parts of its surface-deposits are almost a mass of red iron ore
(haematite). This ore they are digging away at a rate which
would pass belief without the evidence of living sense. Some
of the red ore goes, of course, to feed the throats of the gigantic
furnaces in the neighbourhood. Other portions are transported
by the railway which skirts Morecambe Bay and Duddon
Sands. Day by day, forty-four gigantic trains (each com-
posed of carriages varying in number from 50 to 70) were
seen dragging their almost endless length and gigantic loads
majestically along the undulating line close to the beautiful
shore. But we had, each day also, four regular passenger
trains, and charming it was to be playing in such trains a
game at bo-peep with old father Ocean a minute or two
sweeping along his gently rippling shore then a grand head-
land in view against which he wages an eternal war of foam
and fury. But we took a shorter and quieter line, and shot
our way right through the headland. A few minutes of dark-
ness, and then again the bright air and the sparkling sea.
We could go to Furness Abbey in about half an hour, passing
the fine scenery of the coast of Ulverston then on through
multitudinous iron-works and ore-pits then by the ancient
town of Dalton, in my early years a neat village, now a
wonderful congeries of houses. Again on to the westward
for a while once more in pitchy darkness, and then daylight
breaking out in the very heart of the sweet grounds that skirt
the magnificent ruins of the old Abbey. We several times
visited this ground of enchantment, and twice we went on to
Barrow in my working-days a very small fishing village
now a town of about 1 8,000 inhabitants, and hourly increasing.
SPEECH AT NORWICH. 457
And instead of the sweet clear sky of olden times it has an 1870.
atmosphere like that which overhangs the steam furnaces of iEt - 8 5-
Leeds or Manchester...."
During Sedgwick's residence at Norwich in August and
September, despite a third attack of bronchitis, he took a
prominent part in a meeting convened by the Mayor to press
upon the Government the urgent necessity and importance of
taking effective steps to prevent the exportation of arms and
all articles contraband of war to either France or Germany.
He moved the second resolution, embodying that policy,
in a long and most effective speech. He reminded his hearers of
our difficulties with the United States on a similar question,
and urged that the report of English manufacturers having
contracted to supply arms to France should be sifted to the
bottom. " This question of neutrality," he said, " was not one
for the judge or the lawyer. It belonged to the principle of
honour. To go to a man who was ruled by precedents and
written law, was to go to one who, from those very cir-
cumstances, was partly incapable of judging on a question
which concerned honourable, true-hearted, Christian conduct
between nations. Burke, he remembered, said in one of his
eloquent speeches : ' When you come to a great constitutional
question, you will not go to a lawyer ; the law, when applied
to a question of that kind, is the Chinese shoe of the human
intellect ! ' And so it was. For his part he would prefer the
opinions of any honest-hearted, patriotic yeoman, whose mind
was enlightened by reading he need not be great or learned
and who deserved the name of a Christian gentleman the
word ' gentleman ' he used in a broad sense, for many a poor
man had the heart of a gentleman to that of one who con-
sulted a pack of rustling parchments for he was more likely
to be the better judge." In conclusion he pointed out the
great changes that had taken place within his memory in
Europe and in the world, and shewed that the old laws of
neutrality needed revision that attention ought to be paid
458 FIFTY-SECOND COURSE OF LECTURES.
1870. to great principles, and that the law of conscience should be
Mt. 85. reverted to " a law," he said, " more operative in arriving at
the truth than all the blotted written documents belonging to
mediaeval history."
On his return to Cambridge at the beginning of October
he felt well enough to attempt his usual course of lectures.
" My sweet voice," he wrote, " has lost all its notes of melody.
For three bad attacks of bronchitis, which tormented me since
this year came in, have so becracked my voice that it sounds
like a watchman's rattle, and I fear it will never mend. But,
spite of these drawbacks, my modest assurance is still kept,
and this very day I have sent a notice to the Press of my
intended course of lectures ; which (D.V.) I mean to open on
the 24th of this month. If I give the course it will be my
fifty-second, and undoubtedly my last. This does sound
strange ; but it is no matter for boasting nay rather it is a
thought that should fill my heart with thankfulness ; and
there is sorrow too in the thought that it must be my last
course 1 ."
When he wrote these words he probably hoped that he
might be wrong. But he had estimated the failure of his
powers only too correctly. He did deliver the course, and,
so far as we can make out, with spirit, and no great pain
to himself. But the closing lecture, in which he ''attacked
the materialists," was really the last he ever gave. In the
following year he was compelled to seek the assistance of a
deputy, Professor John Morris.
To Lady Lyell
CAMBRIDGE, December 25/7*, 1870.
My dear Lady Lyell,
Christmas Day ! and I am beginning the day by
doing what I can seldom do with impunity. My eyes do not
commonly allow me to write my own letters. Let me then
be as short as I can.
1 To Lady Augusta Stanley, 13 October, 1870.
CHRISTMAS GREETING TO MURCH1SON. 459
First, I send my Christian love and best greetings to all in 1871.
your house. May this be a thrice happy and a blessed season ^ 86>
to you all ! Next, I request Sir Charles (your maester as we
always call the husband in Dent) to communicate a similar
message to Murchison, if he be well enough to receive it; and
I have heard from time to time that he is better. Lyell need
not say thrice happy, but he surely may say a blessed Christmas
and a Christian can feel joy even in the midst of sorrow....
I am here living almost in solitude yet my spirits are,
on the whole, cheerful, and I try to thank God for His
long-continued mercies to me. Again, a thrice happy
Christmas !
Ever your affectionate old friend,
A. SEDGWICK.
The concluding lines of this letter give a graphic epitome
of the last two years of Sedgwick's life. They were passed
in his rooms in Trinity College, in the monotonous routine to
which an invalid must inevitably submit, but which, in his
case, was submitted to with resignation, and daily " thanks
to God for the many temporal comforts " by which he was
surrounded. Casual observers friends who paid short visits
spoke of his cheerfulness, and probably noticed but little
alteration since they had seen him last. Like a massive
medieval stronghold, which preserves its contour unshattered,
and from a distance betrays no sign of the ravages of time
he could still conceal, except from those who saw him
from day to day, that he was really a ruin of his former self.
His eyes were now so weak that he could neither read
nor write for long together. Occasionally, in the bright light
of morning, he got through a few pages of some book, or
a leading article in The Times, but he was soon obliged to
desist. " My eyes are very impatient when I attempt to
write," he says in 1871 ; "the mere act of leaning over the
paper seems to produce a congestion of the vessels within my
eyelids, and thereby provokes their irritability ; and it makes
460 INFIRMITIES OF OLD AGE.
1871. me nervous to look upon the tracings of my pen, while I do
JEt. 86. no t S ee distinctly the words they are meant to form." It was
not to be expected that one who had been throughout his life
so prolific a writer of letters, would not do his best to continue
his favourite occupation. He was obliged, however, to dictate
all except the most private. Here is his portrait, drawn by
his own hand, while thus engaged, just a year before the
end came.
To Miss Kate Malcolm.
February loM, 1872.
"...Fancy me at this moment sitting in an easy arm-chair,
with my left leg resting upon a gout-stool, and my right
hand holding a gilded ear-trumpet to my right ear, while
I am dictating this letter to John, and you will have the first
outline of my picture. But, to fill it out, you must put a silk
shade over my eyes, and a bright blue silk night-cap upon
my head ; and, to finish the lower part of my face, you must
fancy my nose and chin doing their best to kiss one another.
For my natural teeth, excepting two stumps, are all gone ; and
from a nervous affection of my gums I am now incapable of
using my false grinders which sadly spoils my beauty. My
cheeks are red, not from the flush of health, but from a
malady which gives me much uneasiness, and, at one time, I
thought I was going to have a regular bottle-nose but that
rubicund honour will, I think, be denied me.
My mental condition is worse than that of my senses, for
my memory is little better than a lumber-room, and the
active powers of my mind have become half-torpid from lack
of vital use...."
To some member of his own family usually his niece
Isabella he wrote nearly every day with his own hand,
generally very early in the morning, assisted by spectacles
and a strong lens, and his first letter was generally his last
for the day. These letters, dealing as they do with the
most private circumstances of his life his symptoms, his
CHRISTIAN RESIGNATION. 461
medicine, his food, the employment of his time through 1871.
every hour of the day give a vivid, and on the whole a ^Et. 86.
cheerful, picture of his old age. " I keep up my spirits
pretty well," he writes, "by thinking of the past and by
cherishing hopes for the future, and by reading the letters of
my nieces and grand-nieces, who write good round hands to
suit me. I am not unhappy I have learnt to feel a pleasure
in sitting still in my armchair. But I am in the decade of
labour and sorrow, and I must regard this trial as for my
good, if I use it as an aged Christian ought to do." These
were no empty words, introduced to round a period. He
wished to prolong his life, because he felt that he was still of
use to those whom he loved, and every letter he wrote bears
witness by an enquiry, a present, or a suggestion, to his
considerate thoughtfulness for them. He never grumbled ;
he submitted to his trials as a cross laid upon him by the
Almighty.
His infirmities would not allow him, to his great sorrow,
to attend the services in the College Chapel ; and it became
his daily custom to have the morning and evening lessons
read to him ; the Psalms and some prayers he read to himself.
" I long for acts of social worship," he wrote to his niece, " I
try to do what is right, but how powerless I am in governing
my thoughts as I would wish ! and how soon I flag in my
attention !" The new Lectionary, then just coming into use,
gave him much satisfaction ; and he often devotes a long
letter to recording the thoughts suggested by the chapters he
had listened to, or by some recent edition of the New Testa-
ment or one of the Epistles which had come in his way.
Difficulties in interpretation, or in the chronology of the
Life of Christ, are not seldom discussed at length, with much
acute criticism.
His deafness was to a great extent compensated for by the
skill of his servant, who had learnt the pitch of voice that
suited his master's ears, and read to him for several hours in
each day. By this means he kept himself informed of what
462 INFIRMITIES OF OLD AGE.
1871. was passing in the outer world ; and he followed with keen
JEt. 86. interest the Franco-German war, the Tichborne case, and the
debates in Convocation. His comments on this latter subject
are worth quotation : " The debates carried on in the Houses
of Convocation often fill me with amazement: sometimes
they are dull enough a kind of pious wind-bag which ought
to stuff a hassock. Then they expose to view seared mediaeval
knick-knacks of antiquated pattern. Then come tricks of art,
and new terms of a new logic. Then comes a fermentation
and a fire, such as transforms men's nature, and makes meek
men into sons of thunder. Does it not seem to you that
common-sense has of late seldom found a chair to sit down on
within the limits of Jerusalem Chamber ? "
Still there were long weary hours in which he sat alone in
his easy chair. At such times his thoughts would often
revert to Dent. Little by little he became convinced that he
should never see it again. " I now despair of realizing my
day-dream of a happy visit to the dear dales of your
neighbourhood. More than once, while writing this letter, my
eyes have been filled with tears while the dark shade of
thought was passing over my mind that I might never
again be cheered by the sight of my dear native dale, and the
home of my childhood." It had always been his custom to
send a generous contribution to the poor of Dent at Christmas;
but now, as though to compensate himself for his enforced
absence, he sent a larger sum ; and when any special event
occurred as the funeral of one whom he had formerly known
his purse was at all seasons open.
. The loss of society not that formal society which comes
by invitation but that of friends who drop in for half an
hour's conversation, was a sore trial to him. " No one thinks
of calling on such a crabbed, half-blind, half-deaf old dotard
as myself" he said; and he valued very highly the kindness
of "a benevolent lady-friend," who did call occasionally.
" Such visits are like sunbeams shining through a fog." A
visit from Sir Richard Griffith his companion in old days in
LAST DINNER-PARTY. 463
many happy expeditions, gave him much gratification. " He 1871.
came to see me," he tells his niece, " as an old geological ^" 86 '
friend. I think you do not know this happy genial old
Irishman, who is six months older than I am, yet is up to
anything in bodily activity has good sight, perfect hearing,
and the complexion and manner of a young man 1 ." Once,
when the Dean of Westminster and Lady Augusta Stanley
were visiting the Master (Dr Thompson) he ventured on a
dinner party the last, as it proved, that he ever gave.
TRINITY COLLEGE, November 25^, 1871.
" Well ! now for my party last Thursday. Four from our
Lodge ; four from St John's Lodge ; two from Catharine
College Lodge. So we have ten. Add Dr Lightfoot, Profes-
sor Munro, and Clark our Vice Master, and we muster
fourteen. Mr Luard and two ladies (friends of the Dean)
came afterwards. I gave them a good dinner, and the party
was a very merry and happy one plenty of good talk.
When the ladies retired from the table I went down to rest
in Munro's room for three quarters of an hour, after which
John came to bring me a cup of coffee, and to tell me that
the gentlemen had joined the ladies. So again I put on my
wonderful mufflers and went up to the party. Nothing
could go off better. Plenty of talk and good of its kind.
Lady Augusta was in excellent spirits, and so was the Dean.
They had all left me before 10.45.
Saturday everting. John has just left me after our short
evening service. My poor old eyes will not let me read.
But I can write a little longer what I hardly look at. To-day
I have spent two and a half very pleasant hours talking with
Lady Augusta about their continental tour...."
Now and then, in summer weather, he found his way to
the college walks ; but even there the infirmities of old age
stood in the way of his full enjoyment.
1 To Miss Isabella Sedgwick, 20 June 1872.
464 INTEREST IN WOODWARDIAN MUSEUM.
1872. To Miss Isabella Sedgwick.
' 87 * Alay 2nd, 1872.
"...The weather here is most beautiful, and I have profited
by it. I yesterday evening walked to the private walks of the
Fellows, and walked all round them. And I returned without
fatigue. This was my longest walk in 1872. But alas! I
cannot hear the birds singing round me. The death-like
silence of our walks was painful to me ; but I hoped to help
my dull ears by using my ear-trumpet. It was of no use to
me. Not a bird could I hear, though scores were singing. I
was, however, thankful to hear, on my way back, the cawing
of the rooks which build in some of our college walks.
I was grieved not to hear the sounds of the little piping
voices of the children who were playing by scores behind the
college. But, on the application of my trumpet, the merry
sounds revived in my dull ears, to my great comfort..."
In these years, as in the prime of life, his chief employment
and pleasure was derived from his Museum. The loss of
Mr Lucas Barrett was a severe blow to him, both personally,
and from a scientific point of view; but in his successor
Mr Seeley he had found an able coadjutor. Nor did he
content himself with merely engaging others, at an expense
he could ill afford, to work for him ; whenever it was possible,
and often when it would have been more prudent to have
stayed at home, he might be seen wending his way, by the
help of his crutch-stick, from his rooms to his Museum, to
inspect personally the arrangements that were going forward.
He could still give very valuable help to those who knew how
to profit by it. One who worked there for a while remembers
that when asked about the locality of some specimen, the
label of which was half-obliterated or illegible, he would sit
down and say : " Ah ! I am no good now ; I could have told
you all about that once, but now my head is all confusion."
Then, he would turn the specimen over, and say : "Stop ! let
me see, I think I remember. As you are going down such
LECKENBY COLLECTION. 465
and such a pass etc.," pouring out a mass of geological and 1872.
topographical information which shewed that the whole scene yEt - 8 7-
and its teachings were clearly impressed on his mind. " In
his best days," says our informant, "his memory must have
been marvellously accurate."
In 1871 a very valuable collection was offered to the
University. As on former occasions there were no funds
available for the purchase, and Sedgwick made an appeal
to private generosity. In a few weeks he learnt, " with an
emotion," he says, " of grateful joy, such as I have not felt
since the brightest and happiest days of my youthful life "
that the sum required, with a surplus sufficient to defray the
cost of a cabinet, had been subscribed 1 , and in his next
Report (March, 1872) he was able to announce the safe
arrival of the specimens. His appeal, as being almost his
last utterance on behalf of the Museum to which he had
devoted the best energies of his life, is printed without
abridgement.
To the NOBLEMEN and GENTLEMEN of the University of Cambridge,
and especially to the HEADS of Colleges, the Members of the
COUNCIL, and the Members of the SENATE, the following
Statement is addressed by their very aged and infirm, but very
affectionate and grateful Servant,
ADAM SEDGWICK.
THE old nucleus of the present Geological Museum is of con-
siderable antiquity. It came to the University of Cambridge, partly
by the bequest of Dr Woodward and partly by purchase from his
executors, about the year 1727 ; but it was in a good measure formed
during the latter part of the preceding century. This collection is
still entire (with the exception of a few specimens that have under-
gone spontaneous decomposition), and is preserved with its copious
Catalogues in one of the closets of the present Museum, as an object
both of scientific and historical interest.
The present Geological Collection was begun by the writer of
this Statement in the year 1818; and by his personal labour con-
tinued for many succeeding years, by the kind and generous assistance
and munificence of academic friends, and by various purchases made
by the University, it has become what it is one of the noblest
1 The total subscribed was ; 1,013. 7-r. od.
S. II. 30
466 LECKENBY COLLECTION.
1872. collections, so far as regards British Geology, that exists in England.
Et. 87. I do not compare it with the gigantic and unrivalled collections in
the British Museum ; but, as a collection for study and for practical
use, I think it inferior to no collection existing in this island ; and
of late years it has become more and more frequented by -persons
devoted to the study of the Natural Sciences. But Geology is a very
progressive science, and there are gaps and defects in our collection
which must be supplied, if it is to hold its present high rank among
the Museums of England.
A grand occasion, such as may never again be met with, now
presents itself. Mr Leckenby, of Scarborough, offers to transfer his
entire and beautifully arranged collection to the Woodwardian
Museum for the sum of ;8oo. Many scientific persons (and among
them I am happy to name Professor Morris) have declared this
collection to be of its kind unrivalled. It has been formed during a
good many past years by Mr Leckenby, at a cost many times greater
than the sum above mentioned ; and our assistant Curator, Mr
Henry Keeping, an excellent judge on such a question, regards it of
inestimable value as an addition to the Cambridge Museum, and
thinks that it is offered on terms much below its value. It is most
strong where the present Cambridge collection is most weak that
is, in the Mesozoic or Oolitic series of this Island.
All the specimens, amounting to more than 4000, are of the
choicest character. For many Mr Leckenby paid 205-. each, for some
^5 each ; and indeed on his favourite object he appears to have
spared no cost.
After having given my annual Lectures for 53 years, without
single break in the series, I have been compelled to entreat the
University to appoint a deputy to give my annual course ; and
Professor Morris, a name well known and honoured by all the
geologists of Europe, is now, under University appointment, filling
my place in the Lecture-Room.
With thankfulness to God for the past, I know well that I must
soon be called away from all earthly duties ; but it would cast a gleai
of light on my declining days, and fill my heart with good hoi
for the future of Cambridge, could I see the noble, and in man]
respects the incomparable, collection of Mr Leckenby placed in 01
Museum.
I write this statement with the strongest feelings of love am
reverence for the whole academic body, and for that College whicl
has been my home, now for the long period of sixty-seven years
and I cannot but earnestly and confidently hope, that what I '.
now recommended to the University may become an accomplishe<
fact, honourable to the present history of the University, and
pledge of permanent security to its good foundations that are laid ii
the interests of knowledge and of God's truth.
TRINITY COLLEGE,
Nov. 23, 1871.
CATALOGUES OF MUSEUM. 467
The Collection, of which the history is sketched in the 1872 .
above document, had accumulated with great rapidity, and, yEt 8 7-
while this accumulation was proceeding, it was obviously
impossible to prepare a detailed catalogue of it. Of one
portion that containing the fossils of the palaeozoic rocks
a catalogue had been published, as already narrated 1 ; and
Sedgwick had for some years ardently desired that similar
catalogues for the rest of the Collection should be proceeded
with as rapidly as possible. " A collection," he said, " is of
comparatively little use, and is never safe from spoliation,
without a catalogue." Such a task is, however, very laborious,
and, of necessity, slow, as it must be preceded by the
determination of the specimens to be recorded. To this
cause must be ascribed the delay in the work on which
Mr Seeley was engaged ; Sedgwick, on the other hand, was
impatient for the appearance of the printed catalogues, and
inquiries after them are of frequent occurrence in his corre-
spondence with his assistant. " My day is nearly done," he
writes in 1867 ; "and I am more than ever anxious about the
catalogues;" and again in 1868, " How is the Reptile cata-
logue going on ? With me catalogues are the things most
needful. Long have I longed for them with long-suffering ;
but I fear that I have longer to long! " In 1869, however, the
Index to the Fossil Remains of Aves, Ornithosauria, and
Reptilia, from the Secondary Strata, was ready; and Sedgwick
contributed to it a short Prefatory Notice, giving a history of
that part of the Collection. While this work was proceeding,
Mr Salter, whose name has frequently occurred in our narra-
tive, was attacking the Cambrian and Silurian Fossils, but his
work was irregular, and frequently interrupted by long absences.
Other friends were giving assistance with other groups, and with
the collection of rock-specimens. Their labours, with the
specimens added, are noticed in Sedgwick's valuable Reports,
presented annually to, and published by, the Museums and
Lecture Rooms Syndicate, a body first appointed in 1866.
1 See above, p. 305.
302
468 PREFACE TO SALTERNS CATALOGUE.
1872. When Sedgwick went into Residence at Norwich in 1872,
t 87. h e took with him the proof-sheets of Salter's catalogue,
prepared and corrected for the press with great labour by
Professor Morris, and composed a Preface to it. This work,
completed just four months before his death, is full of interest.
As the specimens catalogued were Cambrian and Silurian
fossils, he is naturally led to give an account of his own
labours in those fields ; and, in fact, the Preface supplies us
with the most detailed information we possess about what he
did in each year of the most active portion of his geological
life. Its value, from a biographical point of view, has been
shewn already by the numerous quotations made from it It
has, however, a scientific value as well ; for after the con-
clusion of the historical portion, Sedgwick passes into a dis-
cussion of the controversy that had arisen respecting the true
boundaries of Cambria and Siluria, and defends his own
position in dignified and temperate language. The Conclusion
may be fitly described as his farewell to the University and
the world. He dwells with gratitude and thankfulness on
the realization of his hopes as to the progress of geology
in Cambridge ; and on the lessons which it had taught him,
and which he had laid before his class in his annual lectures.
" It was my delightful task," he says, " to point out the
wonderful manner in which the materials of the Universe
were knit together, by laws which proved to the understand-
ing and heart of man that a great, living, intellectual, and
active Power must be the creative Head of the sublime
and beautiful adjustments and harmonies of the Universe."
Thence, by a natural transition, he considers Man, and his
position in reference to the Universe, and concludes with tl
following passage, a summary of the teaching of his life.
That Man in his animal nature is to be counted but as one
the great kingdom of things endowed with life, we at once admi
but that in the functions and powers of his intellect (here j
touched on by my feeble hand) he is absolutely removed from a
co-ordination with the lower beings of Nature, is, I firmly believ<
one of the most certain of well apprehended truths. We all admit
PREFACE TO SALTERNS CATALOGUE. 469
that Nature is governed by law : but can we believe that a being 1872.
like man is nothing but the final evolution of organic types worked ^ t> 8
out by the mere action of material causes ? How are such organic
evolutions to account for our sense of right and wrong, of justice,
of law, of cause and effect, and of a thousand other abstractions
which separate man from all the other parts of the animal world ;
and make him, within the limits of his duty, prescient and respon-
sible.
The facts and sentiments connected with that which marks
Humanity, the works of man's hands, the visions of his eyes, the
aspirations of his heart appear to me utterly abhorrent from the
dogmas of materialistic Pantheism. I never could be content, while
thinking of such things, to feel myself dangling in mid-air without a
resting-point for the sole of my foot. The true resting-point is a
reception both in heart and head of a great First Cause the one
God the Creator of all worlds, and of all things possessing life.
Here we have found a true resting-place and heart's content; and
so we are led to feel the sanctity and nobility of Truth, under all
the forms in which it shews itself, to rejoice in its possession, and
to honour it as the gift of God.
What does the Pantheist give us? A day of uncertain light, of
uncertain joy, and a night of eternal darkness. But a better teaching
tells us that there is a God who is the Father of the universe,
and careth for all His creatures : and if we have listened to a still
higher teaching, we can believe that as all the world of Nature
has been progressive, so the life of man, and the labours of man,
are not to end here, but are to lead him to a brighter and more
glorious existence. And there is a higher teaching still, very near
to us, even in our own heart and conscience : an emanation of holy
light from the Fountain-head of all light toward which I am
permitted but to take one glance while winding up this concluding
address. And may our Maker grant that His holy light may guide
the steps and warm the hearts of all who read this Preface !
Soon after the Conclusion to the Preface was written it is
dated 17 September, 1872 Sedgwick returned to Cambridge.
For a time he was unusually well, and full of kindly interest
in the proceedings of his children at Norwich, where Mrs
Sedgwick was spending the winter in his Residentiary house.
" I make out that they were all to go to the dancing-school
yesterday," he writes on October I4th ; "the sooner they get
into regular school-training the better. I ought to be thank-
ful to my God and Saviour for the precious sleep of last night,
and for the improved strength of this day. Yesterday I was
a poor creature, and the day was very very dismal. * Oh let
470 LAST WEEKS.
1872. my mouth be filled with Thy praise, O Lord ! that I may sing
JEt. 87. O f Thy glory and honour all the day long ! Cast me not away
in the time of age ; forsake me not when my strength faileth
me.' The quotation fits me, and may God give me help to
profit by its lesson ! On the whole I think I am stronger
than I was when I last left Norwich, certainly not weaker."
During November and December these good reports continue.
He was busy with the final revision of his Preface; and much
gratified by the warm welcome it received from his friends
when it was published. Some of the old pleasantry appears
in his correspondence ; and, as usual, it is full of quiet kindli-
ness, and thoughts for others.
To Miss Mary Luard.
CAMBRIDGE, November 2%th, 1872.
"...Let me scold you well. Have more respect for the
letter /&, and never more torture it (poor thing!) as you have
done in your letter. Consider what good it does you in your
kerchiefs ! How it enables you to write kindly to your
friends ! How it is your leading friend when you give a kiss
or a keepsake! Show the two clippings 1 to your sister, and
ask her if you have not shamefully maltreated the king of
letters ! Is it not the head of all kindness ? And your very
dog reproaches you when it thinks of its kennel !..."
To his great-nieces.
Advent Sunday, December \st, 1872.
11 Thanks, dearest children, for your kind letters and mes-
sages....
I am going to begin our Sacred Service Year (Advent
Sunday) by celebrating, with God's permission, the Holy
Communion in my own rooms today, with two, or perhaps
three, friends who will I hope come to support me in the
Holy Service. The literal meaning of sacrament is an oath
taken by a soldier to be true to his colours or standard. And
1 He had cut out a sentence from each of the letters in support of his view.
LAST WEEKS. 471
is not Christian life a fight against sin, and all the tempta- 1873.
tions of the world ? We are to ' cast away the works of &* 88 -
darkness and put upon us the armour of light ' (as told in this
day's Collect).. May you all fight the good fight of true-
hearted Christian life !...! must now prepare for my Sacrament
my oath of loyalty to the banner of the Cross my com-
memoration of the death of Christ upon the Cross as a full
redemptive offering for the sins of the whole world. May
God give us grace to accept His offers of love and help in
every hour of need ! Such be your loving prayers for your
old uncle.
P.S. 1.30 p.m. The Service of the Holy Communion was
reverently performed in my rooms by Mr Kirkby, one of our
chaplains, to my great comfort."
The New Year began less brightly. He was gratified by
presents of game and flowers, and the arrival of cards from
his young folks, but he did not feel at his best. " This day,"
he writes on the first of January 1873, "has been most
beautiful. But it has not made me much better. My
digestive powers give way a little, and my skin-complaint
still teases me much more than I like. The spasmodic action
is unchanged. But I will not complain. I am at my average
I think. May God's bright light shine on your heart this
year 1 ."
The symptoms alluded to did not pass away, though he
combated them with strong medicines. His cheerfulness,
however, was maintained, and to a certain extent his power of
locomotion, for, on January roth, he writes in good spirits,
inquires after a lady who had broken her arm, and mentions
that " this morning I had a short drive, and made one or two
calls." A friend who saw him on the afternoon of Sunday,
January the iQth, found him cheerful, and full of conversation.
But, unfortunately, it was necessary that a meeting of the
Chapter of Norwich Cathedral should take place, and, as he
1 To Miss Kate Malcolm, TO January, 1873.
472 LAST WEEKS AND DEATH.
1873. could not travel to Norwich, the Dean and some of the
Et. 88. Canons assembled in his rooms. The excitement proved too
much for him. One of those present, Mr Heaviside, thought
him "fearfully changed since he left Norwich. We did not
let him take part in our discussions," he says, " and I sat with
him after the rest departed. He brightened up considerably
in the afternoon, and was much pleased with a message of
inquiry the Prince of Wales had sent him from Sandringham
by Professor Kingsley. No doubt he varies considerably...
and the depression and weakness may be only temporary....
He talked to me as usual ; but evidently is conscious of his
weakness, and indeed said to me seriously that he did not
think he should live through the spring. He was very
anxious about them all at Norwich."
These forebodings were only too well founded. He never
rallied, and very early on the morning of Monday, 27 January,
the end came. For the details of the last sad days we will
avail ourselves of a letter written to Mrs Vaughan, by Miss
Sedgwick.
My dearest Kate,
Do you remember almost our last conversation
before we parted in the early spring of this year ? We had
been talking of the last few months of my dear uncle's life;
and you asked me to tell you something of those days when
his life was drawing to a close days which, when I look back,
seem so full of peace, and so bright with the golden rays of
life's sunset !
My uncle began his last Residence as Canon of Norwich
on the ist of August, 1872 ; and I joined him at his house in
the Close on the same day. He was very cheerful and seemed
well ; but I remember that, when we arrived, he did not come
to the door to meet his young nieces and myself with his
usual loving words of greeting ; he waited for us in the
drawing-room, saying, with a smile, as we entered, that going
up and down stairs was harder work to him now, than it had
LAST WEEKS AND DEATH. 473
been eighty years before. He was not strong enough to go to 1873.
the early service in the Cathedral during the two months of &* 8 *
his Residence ; his kind friend and brother Canon, Mr
Heaviside, took his place ; but he was able usually to attend
the afternoon service. He drove out almost daily, and went to
see most of his old friends. His love and thought for every
one about him were greater than they had ever been, and he
was specially anxious for the happiness and pleasure of the
young people ; but he frequently said to me, that he felt the
close of his life approaching, and that he knew he should
never come to Norwich again. One thing especially struck
me, how constantly his thoughts seemed to be dwelling upon
the life beyond the grave ; That was the real life to him,
though he took a lively interest in the questions of the day,
generally asking to have The Times read to him, and some-
times The Quarterly Review, and The Edinburgh Review.
Yet, whenever he was alone, earthly things seemed to lose
their interest, and his first words, when we again joined him,
were of some passage of the Bible which was difficult to
interpret, or some incident in the Life of our Lord or His
Apostles that he had been reading, or thinking of. St Paul's
life, and teaching, were very real to him ; he would speak of
the Apostle almost as if he had personally known him, and
he described his journeys, and especially the shipwreck of the
' ship of Alexandria ' off the Island of Melita, as graphically
as if he had been there himself. When passing the door of
his room at night, I have frequently heard him praying
audibly in the most earnest words for all near and dear to
him ; and at other times for himself, in tones of the deepest
humility. After he had gone to bed, he generally repeated
aloud Bishop Ken's evening hymn, Glory to Thee my God
this night.
A great part of the Preface to the Catalogue of the
Cambrian and Silurian Fossils in the Woodwardian Museum
at Cambridge was written from his dictation by his servant
John Sheldrick, during these two months of his Residence at
474 LAST WEEKS AND DEATH.
1873. Norwich. I often asked him, if I could not write for him, but
t. 88. he declined, saying, John was more accustomed to the work
of writing from his dictation than I was. But one morning in
September, when he was particularly cheerful and well, he
asked me, after breakfast, to come with him to the room where
he generally wrote, saying, he had now come to his last day's
work, and as he had some grave and solemn words to say
words, which he felt would be the last he should ever address
to the public he wished me to write them down for him. The
part I refer to is the Conchision of the Preface. I wrote as
rapidly as I could, but it was difficult to keep up with the
rapid flow of words ; sentence after sentence was spoken with
scarcely a pause for thought. When the concluding para-
graph was written, he said : 'There, Isabella ! that is the last
sentence I shall ever write for the public ! Now read it over to
me, in case I wish to make any correction;' but none was
needed, and beyond one or two verbal alterations, where I
had not clearly understood him, no change had to be made
in those eloquent words.
His Norwich Residence ended with the last days of
September, and he was anxious to return to Cambridge and
his beloved College. We parted with sorrowful hearts. The
night before I returned to my Yorkshire home, he said that
we should never be at Norwich together again, but, if God
spared him, he hoped that I would come and see him early in
the coming year at Cambridge, according to my usual custom
for two or three years, as he felt almost certain he should be
gone before the spring. These were sorrowful words to me,
but they were spoken almost joyfully by him.
During the next three months I heard from him two 01
three times a week ; sometimes the letters were written by
himself, but usually he dictated them from his easy chair.
Generally they were written very cheerfully, though sometime
he spoke of increasing weakness, and said that even the short
walk to his Museum tired him. When Christmas came, he
did not forget any of his accustomed charities, but sent a
LAST WEEKS AND DEATH. 475
larger sum than usual to distribute amongst the poor and 1873.
sick of his native valley of Dent. ^ 88 -
Soon after the beginning of the year 1873 I asked him if
he would like me to come and see him at Cambridge ; but as
he knew I was very anxious about the dangerous, and what
proved to be the mortal, illness of an old servant, he replied :
'No! I would rather you came a little later;' at the same
time mentioning that he had just been to the Woodwardian
Museum. I believe that was the last time he was out of his
rooms. At last one morning, Wednesday the 22nd January,
two very sad letters came to me at Langcliffe one dictated
by my uncle, with a postscript from his servant, saying that
he thought him more feeble ; the other from Canon Heaviside,
who had come from Norwich to see him, and thought his
strength was going. These letters were followed, in a few
hours, by a telegram from his physician, Dr Paget, saying,
that my uncle had fainted when getting up, and that he
thought that I had better come at once to Cambridge. I left
by the next train, travelled all night, and arrived next
morning at his rooms in Trinity. He welcomed me with his
usual bright smile, and loving words, told me something of
his increasing weakness, and then said : ' I shall not be long
here now, you must stay and be with me to the last.' He
remained in bed all that day ; he had no pain, he said, only
felt weak. He spoke of old times, and of his father and
mother, brothers, and sisters, who had all, he said, gone home
before him. Then he spoke of the younger generations of his
family, and of other friends whom he hoped soon to meet
again, and of his Cambridge life and work, and the deep
affection which he had always felt for his College and Univer-
sity, and he asked me to read to him some passages from the
Psalms, and the Lessons for the day, according to his usual
custom. When night came, I told him that Mrs Thompson
had asked me to go to the Lodge, and had given me the
key of the door opening on to the turret-staircase, so that
I could come to him at any moment he wanted me. He
476 THE LAST SUNDA Y.
1873. replied : ' I hope you will have a good sleep ; John will
Et. 88. i oo k a fter me.'
The next day (Friday) although he had not slept much,
he seemed stronger, and was up and dressed, and dictated one
or two short letters. He was especially anxious to send some
words of sympathy to a friend, whose wife had just died ; this
letter was the last he ever dictated. Again he had a quiet
night, and was free from pain, though in the morning Dr Paget
thought him weaker. He slept a good deal, but towards
evening roused up, and asked me if I had heard from his
nephews and nieces at Norwich, and sent messages of love to
them. He then asked me to read the i3Oth and 5ist Psalms,
saying that the i3Oth was the last earthly sound that fell
upon the ears of his dear friend Dr Ainger of St Bees college,
to whom he read it when dying; and that the 5ist was the
favourite Psalm of his father in his extreme old age. A little
time after he said : ' Read to me the chapter that you read to
Margaret [his eldest sister] the evening before her death, the
1 7th of St John;' and when I had finished, after a little
pause he went on to speak of his own hopes of salvation,
alluding to himself in words of the deepest humility, saying
that his whole trust was in the atonement which his Saviour
had made for him, and in the mercy and love of his Father in
Heaven.
Sunday was the last day of his earthly life, a day of deep
sorrow, but yet of great peace. He had again a quiet night,
and slept quietly most of the morning. In the afternoon I
heard him praying earnestly, not, I think, knowing that any
one was in the room. I knew he had a dislike to being
watched, and therefore sat partly behind the curtain at the
foot of his bed, and I was too far off to hear at first more than
broken sentences, mingled sometimes with the names of those
he loved ; but, as he prayed more and more earnestly, his
voice grew stronger, and the following sentences I clearly
heard, not spoken together, but with a pause between : ' Wash
me clean in the blood of the Lamb Enable me to submit to Thy
DEATH. 477
Holy Will Sanctify me with Thy Holy Spirit! These were 1873.
the last words he spoke. For a little time his breathing was ^- 8!
hurried, but, as the winter Sunday advanced, it became more
gentle, and he fell asleep ; and so the afternoon passed away,
and the evening closed in, and the stars came out and shone
brightly into the darkened quiet room, where I sat near the
window in the deep stillness, listening to his soft breathing.
Then the evening service began in the Chapel, and the rich
tones of the organ, and the chanting of the choir, now swelling,
and then dying away, could be distinctly heard, and so un-
earthly in its beauty was the melody, that it almost seemed
as if the golden gates of Heaven were opening, and music not
of this world was floating down to that quiet room. In a
little time the stillness was broken by the chimes of St
Mary's Church, and again deep silence fell upon the room.
It was quite impossible, in that deep stillness and quiet,
to realize that a soul was passing away to God.
There was no change till about midnight, and then we
saw the shadow of death come softly over his face, and we
knew that he had passed into the dark valley, and that the
end was near; but there was no pain, only quiet sleep. His
breathing again grew more faint, and soft ; and without a
sigh, just as the clock in the great Court of Trinity chimed a
quarter past one, his spirit returned to God. ' So He giveth
His Beloved sleep.'
Believe me,
Ever yours most affectionately,
MARGARET ISABELLA SEDGWICK.
The news of Sedgwick's death was received with very
general sympathy. The Queen telegraphed : " I am deeply
grieved to hear of the death of our kind old friend, Professor
Sedgwick. He was a most valued friend of the dear Prince.
Pray let me have some details ; " and General Knollys wrote
from Sandringham : " The Prince has to lament the loss of a
valued friend." From all parts of the country came express-
478 FUNERAL.
ions of condolence and regret. One spoke of "the noble-
hearted veteran who has for so many years been one of the
chief glories of Trinity College"; another remembered that
in his undergraduate days " forty-three years ago ! he was
always called ' Old Sedgwick.' Few people have had so long
a career of usefulness, and few have been so generally loved
and respected." But all the affectionate recollections of
kindness received, and of .happy hours passed in the sunshine
of his presence, must give place to the words of a lady who
had known him from her childish days : " As each of the
great old men go home under whose influence one has picked
up what one could of crumbs of wisdom and culture, one feels
that we shall never see their like again, and of no one is that
so true as of Professor Sedgwick. Whatever our age may
produce of great and good and I never believe that because
we grow old, and see the world through a veil of tears and
regrets, God forgets to be gracious, and that the former days
were better than these still, whatever it produces of able,
ingenious, ardent, souls, it never will produce anything like
him the great mind united to an equally great heart, rich in
culture, matured by intellectual discipline, as earnest in the
love of God as of man, and yet simple, genuine, natural,
spontaneous as the veriest peasant, or as one of the little
children whom he loved so well."
The funeral took place on the Saturday after his death.
It was a cold, sunshiny day ; and flakes of snow fell at
intervals, contrasting sharply by their whiteness with the
dark robes of the mourners, as the coffin was carried round
the Great Court, followed, in long procession, by the Fellows,
scholars, and undergraduates of the College ; the official
dignitaries of the University ; a large number of the resident
members of the Senate ; and many friends who had travelled
from a distance in order to be present. On the east side of the
court the procession was met by the Master, the Vice-Master,
the chaplains, and the choir. As they moved slowly towards
the chapel, the choir sang the opening sentences of the Burial
DEAN STANLEY'S SERMON. 479
Service, / am the Resurrection and the Life> which sounded
with even more than usual solemnity through the clear and
frosty air. The grave had been prepared in the centre of the
ante-chapel, close to that of Dr Whewell. The prayer of
committal, and the prayers that conclude the Service, were
pronounced by the Master, in a voice more than once
broken by emotion.
On the Sunday which succeeded Sedgwick's death, as on
that which had preceded it, the Dean of Westminster was the
select preacher before the University. No man was better
qualified, by long friendship, by sympathetic temperament, by
pictorial eloquence in the treatment of a great subject, to
deal worthily with such an unexpected coincidence. It
happened also that Dr Lushington Sedgwick's friend the
oldest member of the University of Oxford, as Sedgwick was
of the University of Cambridge, had passed away a few days
before him. In the first of his two sermons the preacher had
dealt with The Moral and Spiritual Aspect of the Essential
Truths of the Christian Religion, and in his conclusion had
referred to Dr Lushington's career as " fired from first to last
by generous sympathy with suffering, by noble indignation
against wrong, by the firm persuasion of the indissoluble bond
between all that is highest in religion and all that is greatest
in morality." Then, reminding his hearers that Sedgwick's
existence was " trembling between life and death," he spoke
of him as " filled by the same burning enthusiasm for what
was noblest and best in human kind, the same humble and
firm belief in what was holy, and just, and good." On the
following Sunday, which fell on the Feast of the Purification,
the subject of the sermon was Purity and Light. After
describing the origin of the festival, and the meaning of the
two doctrines he desired to enforce, he passed to the theme
which, as he said, must have been throughout his discourse
present to the thoughts of those who listened to him. More
than one preacher on that day spoke of Sedgwick in his
sermon ; and many writers since have done their best, in
480 DEAN STANLEY'S SERMON.
essays, in obituary notices, in speeches, to set forth the
characteristics of one whom they loved and respected ; but
no words that others may have used will bear comparison
with those, at once so eloquent and so true, in which Stanley
commemorated his friend.
Many and various are the recollections, grave and gay, solemn
and sweet, that come back at such a moment ; yet I know not
whether there are any which strike more forcibly on the memory than
the witness which he bore to the two high spiritual doctrines of which
I have thus ventured to speak. Who that ever saw the scorn of that
fierce indignation against baseness, or meanness, or wrong, has not
felt himself nerved to loftier aims ? Who that ever read or heard his
burning words of detestation and disgust against the miserable folly
and sin of sensual self-indulgence his admiration of whatever was
unworldly, generous, and just did not perceive how, amidst the
exuberance of his never-dying youth, amidst all the energy of
political or theological or scientific strife, there was in that granite
rock a crystal spring of affection, simple, tender, and true as ever
burst from the depths of human heart?
'His strength was as the strength of ten,
Because his heart was pure.'
He was, as far as in him lay, ' the salt,' the Attic salt, the purifying
salt, the invigorating salt, which kept us all from corruption,
debasement, and decay. And not less was he ' the light ' of
this our earthly scene. In his own peculiar field he fought the
good fight of faith in this great doctrine, though many forsook it
and fled. In those early struggles of science, when a timorous
theology held aloof, he sprang forward fearlessly into the foremost
rank of inquiry. Freely and boldly did this University trust him for
his arduous task, and freely and boldly did he reward her for her
generous confidence. He left no stone unturned, he left no depth
unexplored, out of which he could extract the secrets of nature or
dispel the darkness of ages. No fanatic partisan ever clung to
ecclesiastical or political dogmas with more perfect submission or
more ardent enthusiasm, than he to the sublime Christian doctrine
that God is Light, and that in Him is no darkness at all that God
is Truth, and that truth will in the end prevail. In this holy confi-
dence, in this magnanimous hope, doubts and difficulties melted away.
Under the magic touch of his reverential ardour the very stones
seemed to cry out, the flinty rocks seemed to have found a voice,
deep called to deep ; and * the sons of God ' seemed again ' to
shout for joy,' as he described the 'fastening of the foundations of
the world and the laying the corner-stone thereof.' And never,
through all these labours, did he lose the conviction that in this
bold research he was fulfilling his Creator's will. Never did he cease
to see in those marvels the signs of the Creator's goodness. For
DEAN STANLEY'S SERMON. 481
himself, as for others, he breathed throughout his long laborious life
that lofty aspiration which is concentred in his latest prayer for this
his beloved University, that 'his Maker, the fountain-head of all
light, would, by His heavenly light, guide the steps and warm the
hearts' of all his hearers.
But when we speak of him as an explorer of the earth, as a
luminary of the scientific horizon, how small a part does this convey
to us of the manifold senses in which to so many amongst us he was
indeed the salt of our life, the light of our world. The light which
irradiated, illuminated, cheered, whatever world he entered ; college
or cathedral, court or cottage, public audience or private home ; by
the fire of affection, by the blaze of genius, by the far-reaching
ray of good deeds, and encouraging, elevating thoughts. It was the
whole man, the whole being, in which this bright example burned
and shone, that made the heart leap with joy as he drew near, and
inspired the humblest and dullest for the time with the inspiration
of his own enthusiasm. Think of that eager, impetuous flow, that
'Homeric' energy of eloquence, that caught up in its current the
incidents, great and small, of his vast and varied recollections ; think
of the flash of that eagle eye that was awakened to fire by whatever
was great and good ; the power of that faltering voice that was
melted into tears by whatever was touching and tender. Think of
that rare union of gracious courtesy and noble independence which
won the affections of all whom he approached from the Queen,
who delighted to honour him, down to the humblest dalesman,
whom he cherished as flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone.
Think of the pride, as of one belonging to a high-born ancestry, with
which he dilated, in thoughts that breathed and words that burned,
on the glories of his Church and country, on the splendour, past
and present, of this his own beloved University. Think of him yet
again if I may for a moment intrude into that inner privacy as
the joyous centre, the unshaken strength, the ever ready guide and
counsellor of kinsfolk and friends. Think of that child-like, simple,
yet manly and understanding faith with which he dwelt at once with
adoring reverence and fearless freedom on the central truths of the
Christian faith ; the ever fresh admiration, as though he had lighted
upon them for the first time, with which he would read in public or
in private the stirring passages of Holy Scripture. Think of the firm
but faltering tones of overflowing thankfulness with which he would
recount the many blessings which had followed him through his
course of fourscore years. Think, let me add, of his calm and
peaceful close, with the last words that trembled on his lips, in the
watches of the last night of his mortal life : ' Sanctify me by Thy Holy
Spirit.' In that grand and gifted soul Purity and Light had indeed
met together, Faith and Knowledge were indeed reconciled.
No long time elapsed before a few friends of Sedgwick
met at Trinity College Lodge to consider how he could be
best commemorated in the University. We believe that there
S. II. 31
482 MEMORIAL AT CAMBRIDGE.
was but one opinion, namely, that the Memorial which he
would have himself selected, and which would best perpetuate
his special work, would be a new Geological Museum, which
should bear his name, and worthily contain the collection
which he had got together. Soon afterwards (25 March) a
public meeting was held in the Senate House. It was a
meeting remarkable not only for its numbers but for the
quality of those who addressed it. The University was
represented by the Chancellor, who presided, the Vice-
Chancellor, the High Steward, and the two Representatives ;
the two principal Colleges by their Masters, Dr Thompson
and Dr Bateson ; science by the Astronomer-Royal and Pro-
fessor Humphry ; literature by Professor Kennedy ; theology
by Professor Selwyn and Professor Lightfoot; the presence
of Professor Shaler of Harvard testified to the sympathy of
America ; that of Mr Conybeare to the good feeling of the
University of Oxford. Of these speakers some had known
Sedgwick intimately ; others only slightly, if at all ; they
dealt with the question before them from different stand-
points, and handled it with different degrees of ability. But
it may be noticed that their speeches, whether eloquent or
not, had always the true ring of sincerity ; they used no set
phrases, they spoke from conviction. And the outcome of
what they said was always the same, whatever their point
of view that Sedgwick was one on whom it behoved the
University to bestow exceptional honour; and that the
proposal before them, to build a new Geological Museum,
was the best that could be suggested for that purpose. We
have no space to analyse these speeches at length but from
the more personal reminiscences of Professor Selwyn a few
sentences may be quoted.
It is difficult to speak one's own thoughts of him whom we are
met to honour ; but let me say that he was a most primitive man of
the solid ancient rock of humanity. He appears like a great boulder-
stone of granite, such as he describes, transported from Shap Fell
over the hills of Yorkshire, dropped here in our lowland countr)
and here fixed for life ; primitive in his name, Adam ; primitn
MEMORIAL AT CAMBRIDGE. 483
in his nature ; in his noble rugged simplicity ; a dalesman of the
north ; primitive in his love of all ancient good things and ways ;
primitive in his love of nature, and of his native rock from which
he was hewn ; primitive in his loyalty to truth, and hatred of
everything false and mean ; a heart, if ever there was one, that
' turned upon the poles of truth.' And it must be said, for it is
what I have heard from his own lips he was primitive in his love
for his dear country, and of our British Constitution, combining
the two great elements of stability and progress ; ' a whig of the
old school,' that was the school of Somers, and Halifax, and the
seven Bishops. On this I would still speak of him geologically ;
he was a block of that primitive granite of English right and
liberty upheaved at Runnymede by Stephen Langton and William
Earl of Pembroke, with the bishops and barons; which, overlaid
in after-times by sedimentary strata of royal prerogative and
arbitrary rule, at last, after long conflict with the tension of the
overlying beds, by the central fire and native force of right and
justice in British hearts, burst through again, and stands to this
day like the strong mountains, the bulwark of our rights, and
liberties, and religion. I must not say here what he said of later
times, but, putting it geologically, the alluvial drift and diluvial
current passed by him, carrying a church here, there abrading
the surface of an old endowment, and making pious founders a
race of extinct fossil animals; but the old granite boulderstone
stood fast. Yet, granite though he was, he was not all hard, as
we know; rugged, but very kindly I know it by experience....
Many remember him as the earliest and kindest friend of their
childhood, and how large and various was his spirit was seen
when his library was sold.
The resolution which this speech supported ran as follows :
"That the proposed Museum be called the Sedgwick Museum,
and that a bust of Professor Sedgwick be placed in it."
Selwyn pleaded that for 'bust' we should read 'statue:'
" Let us have the whole man, as we have been wont to see
him. For what is a geologist without the hand to wield the
hammer ? without the feet to carry him over the mountains ?"
The scheme to which this meeting gave a definite shape
was actively promoted by a well-selected committee, and
funds for the proposed Museum were rapidly and generously
subscribed. The Chancellor gave 1000; Professor Selwyn
500 for the suggested statue ; others followed with smaller
sums, and before many months were over 11,000 had been
got together. To this sum may be added about 7000 by
312
4 8 4
MEMORIAL AT DENT.
accumulation of interest, and ^"2000 by increase in value of
securities so that the Sedgwick Memorial Fund now amounts
to nearly ^"20,000. Here, however, the matter ends. This
sum, large as it is, is not sufficient to build the proposed
Museum, as well as the lecture-rooms, class-rooms, etc.
required for geological teaching; and, up to the present
Memorial Fountain at Dent.
time, the University has not been in a position to provide
the balance. Meanwhile the site, the extent, and the
arrangement of the buildings required have been anxiousb
MEMORIAL AT DENT. 485
debated ; more than one architect has submitted a design ;
but each has failed to win approval. The University is still
without a memorial of Sedgwick.
In Dent, as in Cambridge, it was felt that Sedgwick ought
to be commemorated. After some discussion it was remem-
bered that he had frequently drawn attention to the defective
water-supply ; and it was decided to bring a stream from one
of the adjoining hills, and to erect a Memorial Fountain in
the market-place. The money required, about 200, was
soon subscribed by the statesmen, by members of Sedgwick's
own family, and by friends ; and, happily, little or no debate
about the design was needed. It was agreed on all hands
that an architectural composition would be unsuitable both to
the place and the man ; and a plain pyramidal block of Shap
granite, inscribed Adam Sedgwick, was selected. He is further
commemorated by a tablet in the parish-church, bearing an
inscription by Professor Selwyn. It should be mentioned
that in the course of the year 1889 the restoration of this
church was carried out, at a cost of nearly 3000. Of this
sum at least ^1000 was given in memory of Sedgwick; and
it was Sedgwick whom the Lord Bishop of Richmond, in his
eloquent sermon 1 at the completion of the work, held up to
the dalesmen as an example to be followed.
Sedgwick's biography is now concluded. I propose, how-
ever, to add a short epilogue, in which, speaking in my own
person, I shall recount a few particulars that could not easily
be woven into the foregoing narrative.
In the first place, let me try to describe his personal
appearance. " I am a taller man than you think for," he
told Murchison in 1829; "I am five feet, eleven inches, and a
half." His frame was spare, athletic, and capable of enduring
much fatigue. His complexion was dark a peculiarity in-
1 Adam Sedgwick. A Sermon preached by the Right Rev. J. J. Pulleine,
Lord Bishop of Richmond, at the re-opening of the Parish Church, Dent, after its
Restoration, on the i4th February, 1890. 8vo. Sedbergh.
486 PORTRAITS OF SEDGWICK.
herited from his mother and his face was always wrinkled,
with deep lines in it. It looke 
