Chapter VIII: Part 8

On Thursday, August 10, the travellers were unable to start at dawn as they had intended, because it was found that two of their camels had been stolen during the night, probably with the intention of delaying the start, and so giving time to warn the Bedouin appointed to waylay them. Several hours elapsed before the camels were found, and they were not able to start until 3 p.m. Meter is said to have suggested that the baggage should be left to follow slowly (both the stolen camels and those which had been sent out to bring them back being tired), and that the three Englishmen and the dragoman should ride forward with him, taking with them only their most valuable effects, among which was a black leather bag containing the £3,000, and Palmers despatch-box containing £235 more. At about 5 p.m. they reached the mouth of the Wady Sudr. This valley is described as a narrow mountain-gorge, bounded by precipices which, on the northern side, are from 1,200 to 1,600 feet in height; on the southern side they are much lower, not exceeding 300 or 400 feet. They turned into the Wady, and rode up it, intending no doubt not to halt again until they reached Meter’s camp, at a place called Tusset Sudr. Shortly before midnight they were suddenly attacked by a party of about twenty-five Bedouin, who fired upon them, disabled one of the camels, and took prisoners Palmer, Gill, Charrington, and the dragoman. The accounts of the attack are very conflicting, but it appears certain that Meter deserted his charge at once, and escaped up the Wady to his own camp, which he reached at sunrise; while his nephew, Salameh ibn Ayed, who had been riding with Palmer on one of his uncle’s camels, rode rapidly off in the opposite direction, down the Wady, taking with him the bag containing the £3000, and the despatch-box. It has been affirmed that he struck Palmer off the camel; but, as it is stated in evidence that the attacked party knelt down behind their camels and fired at their assailants, the truth of this rumour may be doubted. It is certain, however, that had he not been at least a thief, if not a traitor, he would have warned the men in charge of the baggage of what had occurred, for it was proved afterwards, by the tracks of his camel, that he had passed within a few feet of them; or, if he really missed them in the dark, that he would have gone straight on to Moses’ Wells and given the alarm there, or even to Suez, as it was deposed he was desired to do. As it was, he rode straight on to the mouth of the Wady, and thence by a circuitous route to Meter’s camp, having hid part of the money and the despatch-box in the Desert. What he did with the remainder will probably never be known.

Meanwhile the four prisoners were stripped of everything except their underclothing, which, being of European make, was useless to Arabs, and taken down to a hollow among the rocks about 200 yards from the place of attack. Here they were left in charge of two of the robbers. The rest, disappointed at finding no money, rode off, some to pursue Salameh, some to look for the baggage. They were presently followed by one of the two guards, so that for several hours the Englishmen were left with only one man to watch them. The drivers were just loading their camels for a start, when they were attacked, disarmed, and the baggage taken from them. Palmer’s servant was made prisoner, but the camel-drivers were not molested, and were even permitted to take their camels away with them. The robbers then retraced their steps, and rode up the valley for about three miles. There they halted, and laid out the spoil, with the view of dividing it; but they could not agree, and finally each kept what he had taken. This matter settled, they mounted their camels again, and went to look after their prisoners, taking Palmer’s servant with them.

We will now return to Meter ibn Sofieh. On arriving at his own camp he collected his four sons and several other Bedouin, and came down to the place of attack. This they were able to recognize by the dead or wounded camel, which had not then been removed. Finding nobody there, they shouted, and were answered by the prisoners in the hollow. Meter and another went down to them and found them unguarded, their guard having run away on the approach of strangers. Had Meter really come to save them—and it is difficult to explain his return from any other motive than that of a late repentance—there was not a moment to be lost. Much valuable time, however, was wasted in useless expressions of pity and exchange of Bedouin courtesies, and they had hardly reached Meter’s camels before the hostile party came in sight. It is reported that Meter’s men said, ‘Let us protect the Englishmen,’ and raised their guns; but that Meter answered, ‘No, we must negotiate the matter,’ and allowed his men to be surrounded by a superior force. What happened next will never be known with certainty. Meter himself swore that he offered £30 for each of the five; others, that he offered thirty camels for the party; while there is a general testimony that Palmer offered all they possessed if their lives could be spared, adding, ‘Meter has all the money.’ The debate did not last long, not more than half an hour, and then Meter retired, it being understood that the five[107] prisoners were all to be put to death. The manner of the execution of this foul design had next to be determined, and it seems to have been regarded as a matter requiring much nicety of arrangement. The captors belonged to two tribes, the Debour and the Terebin, and it was finally arranged that two should be killed by the Debour, and three by the Terebin. The men who were to strike the blow were next selected, one for each victim; and when this had been done the prisoners were driven before their captors for upwards of a mile, over rough ground, to the place of execution. It was now near the middle of the day, and the unfortunate men had no means of protecting their heads from the August sun. It is to be hoped, therefore, that they were nearly unconscious before the spot was reached. At that part of the Wady Sudr a ledge or plateau of rock, some twenty feet wide, runs for a considerable distance along the steep face of the cliffs; and below it the torrent cuts its way through a narrow channel, not more than eighteen feet wide, with precipitous sides, about fifty feet high. At the spot selected for the murder a mountain stream, descending from the heights above, works its way down the cliffs to the water below. The bed of this stream was then dry; but it would be a cataract in the rainy season, and might be trusted to obliterate all traces of the crime. The prisoners were forced down the mountain side until the plateau was reached, and then placed in a row facing the torrent, the selected murderer standing behind each victim. Some of the Bedouin swore that they were all shot at a given signal, and that their bodies fell over the cliff; others that Abdullah was shot first, and that the remaining four, seeing him fall, sprang forward, some down the cliff, some along the edge of the gully. Three were killed, so they said, before they reached the bottom; the fourth was despatched in the torrent-bed by an Arab who followed him down. There is, however, reason for believing that some at least were wounded or killed before they were thrown into the abyss; for the rocks above were deeply stained with blood. It may be that one or more of them had been wounded in the first encounter, or intentionally maimed by their captors; and this may explain what seems to us so strange, that they made no effort to escape during the long hours they were left unguarded. At the moment of death Palmer alone is said to have lifted up his voice, and to have uttered a solemn malediction on his murderers. He knew the Arab character well, and he may have thought that the last chance of escape was to terrify his captors by the thought of what would come to pass if murderous hands were laid upon him and his companions.

Justice was not slow to overtake the criminals. In less than two months Colonel Warren, to whom the direction of the search-expedition was entrusted[108], had discovered who they were, and had found some scattered remains of their unfortunate victims in the gulf which they hoped would conceal them for ever. In January 1883 he read the solemn burial service of the Church at the spot in the presence of the brother and sister of Lieutenant Charrington; after which, according to military custom, the officers present fired three volleys across the torrent. On the hill above they raised a huge cairn, 17 feet in diameter, and 13 feet in height, surmounted by a cross, which the Bedouin were charged, at their peril, to preserve intact. Of the actual murderers three were executed, as also were two headmen for having incited them to the crime. Others were imprisoned for various terms of years, and the Governor of Nakhl, who was proved to have been privy to the murder, and near the place at the time, was imprisoned for a year and dismissed the service. The end of Meter ibn Sofieh was strangely retributive. He had led the party out of their way into an ambuscade[109], probably for the paltry gain of £3000, for we have seem that his nephew escaped with the gold, and £1000 was afterwards found in the place where he knew it was hid; he had betrayed the man with whom he had solemnly eaten bread and salt in Misleh’s camp only a month before; he hid himself in the Desert for awhile, then he gave himself up, and told as much of the story as he probably dared to tell; then he fell ill—his manner had been strange ever since the murder, it was said—he was taken to the hospital at Suez, and there he died. These, however, were only instruments in the hands of others. The influence which Sheikh Abdullah was exercising in the Desert was soon known at Cairo, and the Governor of El Arish was sent out to bring him in dead or alive; the Bedouin swore that Arabi had promised £20 for every Christian head; the murder itself was planned at Cairo, by men high in place, for Colonel Warren complains over and over again that the Shedides thwarted his proceedings, and let guilty men escape. And after the guilt of Egypt comes the guilt of Turkey: Hussein Effendi, a Turkish notable at Gaza—a man who might have been of the greatest service—was not allowed by the Porte to help in bringing the guilty to justice; and there were other indications that further inquiry was not desired. The murder in the Wady Sudr is one more count in the long indictment against the Turk which the Western Powers will one day be compelled to hear; and, after hearing, to pronounce sentence.

The remains discovered by Colonel Warren were reverently gathered together and sent home to England, and in April, 1883, they were interred in the crypt of S. Paul’s Cathedral. A single tablet, placed near the grave, records the names of the three Englishmen and their faithful attendants who died for their country in the Wady Sudr, and now find a fitting resting-place among those whose deeds have won for them a world-wide reputation.

Not once or twice in our rough island-story
The path of duty was the way to glory.

FRANCIS MAITLAND BALFOUR.

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

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo’s laurel bough;

the pride which the University took in one of her most popular and distinguished members is changed to an outburst of passionate regret; and all that his friends can do is to attempt a brief record of a singularly brilliant career, a tribute of affection to be laid upon his grave.

Mr Balfour was a younger son of the late Mr J. M. Balfour of Whittinghame, near Prestonkirk, and of the late Lady Blanche Balfour, a sister of Lord Salisbury. He entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, from Harrow, in October 1870. He brought from school the reputation of being a clever boy, whom the masters liked and respected, but of not sufficient ability to distinguish himself remarkably at Cambridge. Those who expressed this opinion overlooked the fact that he had already evinced a decided bent for Natural Science, and had published a brief memoir on the geology of his native county, Haddingtonshire. In his very first term he was fortunately induced to attend the biological lectures of the Trinity Prælector in Physiology, Mr Michael Foster; he made rapid progress, and at Easter 1871 he obtained the Natural Science Scholarship at Trinity College. He at once commenced original research in the direction in which he was afterwards to be so distinguished; and after two years’ work published a paper on _The Development of the Chick_ in the _Microscopical Journal_ for July, 1873. Indeed, we believe that the time spent on this and kindred investigations diminished somewhat the brilliancy of his degree, for he was placed second instead of first, as had been expected, in the Natural Sciences Tripos of 1873.

In November of that year he was nominated by the Board of Natural Science Studies to work at the Zoological Station at Naples, then lately established by Dr Anton Dohrn. His object in going there was to continue his investigations on Development, and before starting he had determined to study the Elasmobranch Fishes (Sharks and Rays), as it seemed likely, from their pristine characters, that their development would throw great light on the early history of vertebrate animals. The result showed how wisely he had made his selection. He made discoveries of the highest value in reference to the development of certain organs, and the origin of the nerves from the spinal cord—points which had baffled the most acute previous observers. These were not merely valuable for the history of the special group from which they were derived, but threw a flood of light upon the connexion between vertebrates and invertebrates, and their derivation from a common ancestry; views which he expanded afterwards in his work on Embryology. The results of his Neapolitan researches were embodied in the dissertation upon which he rested his candidature for a Fellowship at Trinity College; and were afterwards printed in the _Philosophical Transactions_ for 1875. Fortunately for him, a Natural Science Fellowship was vacant in 1874, to which he was elected, in consequence of the value of this dissertation. It is what is called an open secret that its great merits were at once recognized by Professor Huxley, to whom it had been referred.

From that time forward Balfour devoted himself unremittingly to continuous research in preparation for his systematic treatise on Embryology, the plan of which he had already sketched out, and which was finally completed and published in 1881. Before this appeared, however, he had published numerous papers of great value, covering nearly the whole range of his subject. Many of these will be found in the _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science_, of which he was one of the editors. As an original investigator he had no equal. He was skilful in manipulation, and observed rapidly and exactly, so that no point escaped his notice. His mind was calm and wholly free from prejudice, with a singularly broad and original grasp, which enabled him to seize, with readiness and sureness, the principle which lay under a number of apparently discordant facts. At the same time, like every true genius, he was singularly modest and retiring, always ready to depreciate the value of his own work, and to put forward that of others, especially of men younger than himself. We know of many students, now rising to distinction, who owe their first success to his generous encouragement, and, we may add, in some cases to his bountiful assistance, given with a delicacy which doubled the value of the gift. It was this strong desire to encourage others to work at Natural Science that induced him, in 1875, to undertake a class in Animal Morphology, or, as it used to be called, Comparative Anatomy. At first only a few students presented themselves, and one small room at the New Museums was sufficient for their accommodation. The class, however, grew with surprising rapidity; and, after Mr Balfour’s appointment as Natural Science Lecturer to Trinity College, it became necessary to build new rooms for his use. During the year 1881 the numbers had reached an average of nearly sixty in each term; and just before he left England for the excursion which has ended so fatally he had superintended the plans for a yet further extension of the Museum Buildings.

His reputation as a successful teacher soon became known far and wide; students came from a distance to work under his direction; and he received tempting offers to go elsewhere. It need no longer be a secret that, after the death of Professor Wyville Thompson, the Chair of Natural History at Edinburgh was offered to him; or that, after the death of Professor Rolleston, he was strongly urged by the leading men in Natural Science at Oxford to accept the Linacre Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology. But he was devoted to Cambridge, and nothing would induce him to leave it. His refusal of posts so honourable induced the University, somewhat tardily perhaps, to recognize his merits, and a new Professorship was established in the course of last term for that especial purpose. We extract a few sentences from the Report in which the Council of the Senate recommended this step[112]:

The successful and rapid development of biological teaching in Cambridge, so honourable to the reputation of the University, has been formally brought to the notice of the Council. It appears that the classes are now so large that the accommodation provided but a few years ago has already become insufficient, and that plans for extending it are now occupying the attention of the Museums and Lecture-Rooms Syndicate.

It is well known that one branch of this teaching, viz. that of Animal Morphology, has been created in Cambridge by the efforts of Mr F. M. Balfour, and that it has grown to its present importance through his ability as a teacher and his scientific reputation.

The service to the interests of Natural Science thus rendered by Mr Balfour having been so far generously given without any adequate Academical recognition, the benefit of its continuance is at present entirely unsecured to the University, and the progress of the department under his direction remains liable to sudden check.

It has been urgently represented to the Council that the welfare of biological studies at Cambridge demands that Mr Balfour’s department should be placed on a recognized and less precarious footing, and in this view the Council concur. They are of opinion that all the requirements of the case will be best met by the immediate establishment of a ‘Professorship of Animal Morphology’ terminable with the tenure of the first Professor.

It is a melancholy satisfaction, when we think how short his life was—for he would not have been thirty-one years of age until November next—that so many honours had been showered upon him. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1878; in the autumn of 1881 he received the Royal Medal; and in 1882 he was elected a member of the Council. He was President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and became General Secretary of the British Association at the York Meeting in August 1881.

But it is not merely as a man of science that Mr Balfour will be remembered. He was not one of those enthusiasts who can see nothing beyond the limits of their own particular studies. He was a man of wide sympathies and interests. He devoted much time and attention to College and University affairs; and was an active member of numerous Syndicates, to whose special business he applied himself with infinite energy. He was also a keen politician on the Liberal side, and an ardent University reformer. His complete mastery of facts, his retentive memory, and his admirable powers of reasoning, made him a formidable antagonist in argument; but, though he rarely let an opportunity for vindicating his own opinions go by without taking full advantage of it, we never heard that he either lost a friend or made an enemy. He was so thoroughly a man “who bore without abuse the grand old name of gentleman,” that he could never be a mere disputant. He approached every subject with the earnestness of sincere conviction, and he invariably gave his opponents credit for a sincerity equal to his own. It was only when he found himself opposed to presumption, shallowness, or ignorance, that the natural playfulness of his manner ceased, his mild and delicate features darkened to an unwonted sternness, and his habitually gentle voice grew cold and severe. We have heard it said that he was too uniformly earnest, that he took life too seriously, and that he lacked the saving grace of humour. But his earnestness was perfectly genuine, and he would have joined hands with the Philistines in scorning the follies of the “intense.” With the undergraduates he was immensely popular. Besides his great success as a teacher, he had the inestimable gift of sympathy; they felt that they had in him a friend who thoroughly understood them, and they trusted him implicitly; while the members of his own special class regarded him with a veneration which it has been the lot of few teachers to inspire. Nor was his influence upon men older than himself less remarkable. They were fascinated by his exquisite courtesy; his quiet, high-bred dignity; his respect for the opinions and feelings of others. No one of late years has exerted so strong a personal influence in the University. It was the vigour of this personality which enabled Natural Science to take the place it now occupies in Cambridge life. He began to teach at a time when the rising popularity of science was regarded with dislike and suspicion by not a few persons. He left it accepted as one of the studies of the place. What will happen now that he has been taken away it is hard to foresee. We hope and believe that Natural Science is too deeply rooted at Cambridge to be permanently affected by even his loss. We trust that the strong efforts which will be made to keep together the school which he had created may be successful; but we fear that it will soon be evident that the members of the University have lost not merely a very dear friend, but also a master.

_29 July, 1882._

HENRY BRADSHAW.

The past twelve months have been singularly fatal to Cambridge; but no loss has caused grief so widespread and so sincere as that of the distinguished scholar and man of letters who passed quietly away while sitting at his library-table on the night of last Wednesday week[113]. If proof were needed of the respect in which he was held, we have only to point to the vast assemblage of past and present members of the University which filled the chapel of King’s College on Monday last to do honour to his funeral. Nor will the grief be confined to Cambridge. Though Mr Bradshaw rarely quitted his own University, and took no trouble to bring himself into notice, few men were more highly appreciated, both at home and abroad. It is hardly necessary to observe that this recognition of his merits was of no sudden growth. We can recall the time when he was working silently and unknown, and when even a small circle of devoted friends had not realised the extent and thoroughness of those studies which he carefully kept in the background. But gradually the world of letters became aware that there were many points in bibliography and kindred subjects which could not be set on a right footing unless the inquirer were willing to pay a visit to him. No one who did so had any cause to regret his journey. He was certain to be received with a courtesy which, we regret to say, is nowadays commonly called old-fashioned, and to find himself before he left far richer than when he came. Mr Bradshaw was the most unselfish of men; and the stores of his knowledge were invariably laid open, freely and ungrudgingly, to every inquirer, provided he was satisfied that the work proposed would be thoroughly well done. He was modest to a fault; and we believe that he really preferred to remain in the background, while others, at his suggestion and with his help, worked out the subjects in which he took special interest. It was no fault of theirs if his share in their work remained a secret. His generous wish to help others forward made him refuse more than once, as we well know, to allow his name to appear in connexion with work that he had really done; and posterity will have to tax its ingenuity to discover, from a few words in a preface or a line in a note, how much belongs of right to him. Nor was it only in subjects with which he was specially familiar that his help was valuable. He seemed equally at home in all branches of knowledge. He knew so thoroughly how materials should be used, and in what form the results would be best presented, that, whether the subject were art, or archeology, or history, or bibliography, or early English texts, his clear and accurate judgment went straight to the point, and reduced the most tangled facts to order. But, devoted student as he was, he was no bookworm. He took the liveliest interest in all that was going on around him. His strong common sense, his kind, charitable nature, and his habit of going to the bottom of every question presented to him, enabled him to sympathize with those who had arrived at conclusions widely different from his own. As a younger man he was too reserved, too diffident of himself, to feel at ease in the society of men of his own standing. He thought they disliked him, and this idea increased his natural sensitiveness and his love of retirement. The truth was that he was too honest to be popular. Like Alceste in _Le Misanthrope_, he would rebuke insincerity and pretentiousness with a few blunt stern words that made the offender tremble; and, if he disliked anybody, as happened sometimes, he took no pains to conceal it. Hence he was respected, but he was not liked. By slow degrees, however, the natural geniality of his disposition gained the upper hand, and the warm heart which beat under that calm exterior was allowed to assert itself. The old severity of denunciation, instead of being exercised on individuals, was reserved for slovenly work, unjust criticism, or unfair treatment. He began to go more into society, in which he took a keen pleasure, though he would rarely allow himself to spend what he called an idle evening. At all times he had sought the company of young people. At a period when undergraduates hardly ventured to speak to men older than themselves, his quiet kindness attracted them to him, and obtained their confidence. In him they were certain of a friend whose sympathy never failed them, and from whom, no matter what trouble or difficulty had befallen them, they were sure of advice and help. Many a man now successful in life may thank him for the influence which, exercised at a critical time, determines a career for good; and not a few have been enabled by his generosity to begin the studies in which they are now distinguished.

The events of such a life are not numerous. Mr Bradshaw was born 2 February, 1831. He was educated at Eton College, on the foundation, and came up to King’s College, Cambridge, in February, 1850. He proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1854. At that time members of King’s College were not obliged to submit themselves to University examinations, but he and some others availed themselves of the permission then accorded to them to do so, and he was placed tenth in the second class of the Classical Tripos. Soon afterwards he accepted a mastership at S. Columba’s College, near Dublin, then under the direction of his old friend, the late Mr George Williams; but finding tuition, after a few months’ trial, uncongenial to his tastes, he returned to Cambridge, and to those studies which ended only with his life. His connexion with the University Library began two years afterwards. In 1856 he was appointed principal assistant, a post which he resigned in 1858. In 1859 he returned to the Library as Keeper of the Manuscripts, an office specially created for the purpose of retaining his services, the value of which had even then been discovered. This office he held until 1867, when, on the resignation of Mr J. E. B. Mayor, he was elected librarian. From a boy he had been distinguished for a love of books; but it was not until his return to Cambridge from Ireland that he was able to devote himself seriously and systematically to the study of bibliography in its widest sense, with all that is subsidiary to it. Most of us know what a dreary subject bibliography is when treated from the ordinary point of view. In his hands, however, it acquired a human interest. He studied specimens of early printing, not for themselves, but for the sake of the men who produced them. In following out this system he went far more thoroughly than an ordinary bibliographer cares to do into every particular of the book before him. Paper, type, signature, tailpiece, were all taken into account, so as to settle not only who printed the volume, but in what relation he stood to his predecessors and successors.

Bradshaw had an unerring eye for detecting small differences in style, a memory which never failed him, and an instinct of discovery little short of marvellous. Again and again in well-known libraries, both in England and on the Continent, he has been able, after a brief examination, to point out important facts which scholars who had worked there for the best part of their lives had failed to notice.

In the same spirit of discovery he applied himself to the study of Chaucer. Silently and secretly, as was his wont, he examined all the manuscripts within his reach, and then set to work to determine (1) what was Chaucer’s own work; (2) what is the real order of the _Canterbury Tales_. In the course of his researches it occurred to him that the rhymes used would prove a test of what was Chaucer’s and what was not. Without assistance from any one he wrote out a complete rhyme-list—an astonishing labour for an individual, when it is remembered that the _Tales_ contain some eight thousand lines, every one of which must have been registered twice, and many three or four times. The labour, however, was not thrown away. The rhymes employed turned out to be a true test, and Mr Bradshaw was enabled to publish in 1867 ‘The Skeleton of Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_: an attempt to distinguish the several Fragments of the Work as left by the Author.’ We regret to say that this pamphlet of fifty-four octavo pages is all that the world is ever likely to see of this splendid piece of work. With characteristic self-depreciation he says, in a note appended in 1871, ‘Mr Furnivall’s labours have put far out of date any work that I have ever done upon this subject’; but it is gratifying to turn to Mr Furnivall, and read, ‘There is only one man in the world, I believe, who thoroughly understands this subject, Mr Henry Bradshaw.’ He welcomed Mr Furnivall with habitual generosity, and placed in his hands, without reserve, all that he had got ready for the edition of Chaucer which he at one time intended to publish himself. Publication, however, was what he could rarely be persuaded to attempt. It was not criticism that he feared; but he had set up in his own mind such a lofty standard of excellence that he could not bear to abandon a piece of work while it was yet possible to add some trifling detail, or to correct some imperfection which his own fastidious taste would alone have been able to detect. It is sad to think how much has perished with him. His excellent memory enabled him to dispense with notes to a far greater extent than most persons, and those which he did put down were written on a system to which we fear it will be impossible now to find the key. What he actually published amounts to very little. When we have mentioned eight short octavo pamphlets, which he called ‘Memoranda’; a few papers printed by the Cambridge Antiquarian Society; some communications to _Notes and Queries_ and other periodicals; and an admirable edition of the new _Statutes for the University of Cambridge, and for the Colleges within it_, we fear that the list is complete. He had made important discoveries respecting the old Breton language in connexion with the early collection of canons known as the _Hibernensis_, and had collected materials for a Breton glossary which would have placed him in the first rank of philologers; he had worked at Irish literature with the special object of elucidating the history of early Irish printing; in knowledge of ancient service-books he was probably second to none, and at the time of his death he was writing a preface to the new edition of the Sarum Breviary; and, lastly, he had made considerable progress towards a catalogue of the fifteenth-century books in the University Library. On all these subjects considerable materials exist; but who is fit to take his place and make use of them?

_20 February, 1886._

WILLIAM HEPWORTH THOMPSON.

The death of the Master of Trinity College has severed almost the last of the links which connect the present life of Cambridge with the past. From 1828 until his death[114] in 1886 his connexion with his college was unbroken; for a brief absence soon after his election to a Fellowship, and the periods of canonical residence at Ely need hardly be taken into account. He was, therefore, up to a certain point, a typical Trinity man of the older school; a firm believer in the greatness of his college, and in the obligation laid upon him personally to increase that greatness by every means in his power. But he did not admire blindly. He could recognize, if he did not welcome, the necessity for changes in the old order from time to time; and he was known throughout the best period of his intellectual life as a Liberal and a reformer. He was a rare combination of a student without pedantry, and a man of the world without foppishness, or want of principle.

As an undergraduate he was fortunate in obtaining the friendship of men who afterwards became celebrated in the world of letters, most of them members of that famous coterie of which Tennyson and Hallam were the most notable figures. Indeed it is not impossible that the poet may have intended to include Thompson himself among those who

“held debate, a band
Of youthful friends, on mind and art
And labour, and the changing mart,
And all the framework of the land.”

In their society he laid the foundation of that wide knowledge of literature, that keen interest in whatever was going forward, that habit of weighing all things in the nicely-adjusted balance of thoughtful criticism, which made what he wrote so valuable, and what he said so delightful. Nor, after he had obtained his Fellowship, and was free to do as he liked, was he content to become a student and nothing more. He was careful to add a knowledge of men and manners to what he was learning from books. He travelled abroad, and acquired a competent knowledge of more than one modern language; he was fond of art, and a good judge of pictures and sculpture. Nor did he forget the friends of his undergraduate days. He was a welcome, and we believe a frequent, guest at their houses both in town and country, where his fine presence, his courteous bearing, and his quiet, epigrammatic conversation were keenly appreciated. To the influence of these social surroundings he owed that absence of narrowness which is inseparable from a University career, if it be not tempered by influences from the outside.

Academic lives usually contain few details to arrest the biographer, and his was no exception to the rule. His father was a solicitor at York, and he was born in that city 27 March, 1810. He was educated at a private school, which he left when thirteen years old, and was then placed under the care of a tutor, with whom he remained until he came up to Trinity in the Michaelmas Term, 1828, as one of the pupils of Mr Peacock, afterwards Dean of Ely. To his watchful care and sound advice Thomson felt himself under deep obligation, and in after-life he used to describe him as “the best and wisest of tutors.” It had been at first intended that he should enter as a sizar; but this decision was reversed at the last moment, and he matriculated as a pensioner. He obtained a scholarship in 1830, and one of the Members’ prizes for a Latin Essay in 1831. At that time candidates for Classical Honours could not present themselves for the Classical Tripos until they had satisfied the examiners for the Mathematical. Thompson must have devoted a considerable portion of his time to that subject, for he appears in the Tripos of 1832 as tenth Senior Optime. In the Classical Tripos of the same year he obtained the fourth place, being beaten by Lushington, Shilleto, and Dobson, the first of whom beat him again in the examination for the Chancellor’s medals, of which he won only the second. He was elected Fellow of his College in 1834. His reputation as a scholar marked him out for immediate employment as one of the assistant-tutors; but for a time either no vacancy presented itself, or men senior to himself were appointed. Meanwhile he accepted a mastership in a school at Leicester, work which, we believe, he did not find congenial. In October 1837 he was recalled to Cambridge by the offer of an assistant-tutorship. In 1844, on the retirement of Mr Heath, he became tutor, an office which he held until he obtained the Regius Professorship of Greek in 1853. The other candidates on that occasion were Shilleto and Philip Freeman, but the electors were all but unanimous in their choice of Thompson. In the spring of 1866, on the death of Dr Whewell, he was appointed to the Mastership of Trinity College.

In attempting to estimate the value of his work as a classical teacher, it must be remembered that he was the direct heir of the system introduced into Trinity College by Hare and Thirlwall. We are not aware that he attended the lectures of the former, though he may well have done so, but we have heard from his own lips that he derived great benefit from those of the latter, which were as systematic as Hare’s had been desultory. Those distinguished scholars, while not neglecting an author’s language, were careful to direct the attention of their pupils to his matter. They did not waste time unduly on the theories of this or that commentator, though they had carefully digested them, but they showed how their author might be made to explain himself. In fine, the discovery of his thoughts, not the dry elucidation of his words, was the object of their teaching. Translation, again, received from them a larger share of attention than it had done from their predecessors. In this particular Thompson attained an unrivalled excellence. His translations never smelt of the lamp, though it may be easily imagined that this perfection had not been arrived at without much preliminary study. But, when presented to the class, toil was carefully kept out of sight. The lecturer stood at his desk and read his author into English, with neither manuscript nor even notes before him, as though the translation was wholly unpremeditated, in a style which reflected the original with exact fidelity, whatever the subject selected might be. He seemed equally at home in a dialogue of Plato, a tragedy of Euripides in which, like the _Bacchae_, the lyric element predominates, or a comedy of Aristophanes. He did not labour in vain. The lecture-room was crowded with eager listeners; and the happiest renderings were passed from mouth to mouth, and so made the round of the University. But we are glad to think that his fame as a scholar rests on a firmer foundation than traditions of the lecture-room, however brilliant. The author of his choice was Plato, and though ill-health and a too fastidious criticism of his own powers, which made him unwilling to let a piece of work go out of his hands so long as there was any chance of making it better, stood in the way of the complete edition, or, at any rate, translation, of the author, which he once meditated, yet he has left enough good work behind him to command the gratitude of future scholars. To this study he was doubtless directed, in the first instance, by natural predilection; but, if we mistake not, he was confirmed in it by the scholars above-mentioned, either directly or by their suggesting to him the study of Schleiermacher, whose writings were first introduced to English readers by their influence. That critic’s theory—that Plato had a comprehensive and precise doctrine to teach, which he deliberately concealed under the complicated machinery of a series of dialogues, leaving his readers to combine and interpret for themselves the dark hints and suggestions afforded to them—was followed by Thompson with great learning, unerring tact, and firm grasp. His editions of the _Phaedrus_ (1868) and the _Gorgias_ (1871) are models of what an edition, based on these principles, ought to be; and the paper on the _Sophistes_, long lost sight of in the _Transactions_ of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, but republished in the _Journal of Philology_ (1879), is a masterpiece. Nor must we omit an introductory lecture on the _Philebus_, written in 1855, and published in the same journal (1882), which is a piece of literature as well as a piece of criticism; or the learned and instructive notes to Archer Butler’s _Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy_, the first edition of which appeared in 1855.

Thompson discharged the difficult duties of a college tutor with admirable patience and discretion. Those who knew him imperfectly called him cold, hard, and sarcastic; and his bearing towards his brother Fellows gave occasionally, we must admit, some colour to the accusation. But in reality he was an exceedingly modest man, diffident of himself, reserved, and at first somewhat shy in the society of those whom he did not know well. Again, it must be recollected that nature had dealt out to him a measure of ‘irony, that master-spell,’ of a quality that a Talleyrand might have envied. Hence, especially when slightly nervous, he got into a habit of letting his words fall into well-turned sarcastic sentences almost unconsciously. The most ordinary remark, when uttered by him, became an epigram. We maintain, however, that he never said an unkind word intentionally, or crushed anybody who did not richly deserve it. For the noisy advocate of crude opinions, or the pretender to knowledge which he did not possess, were reserved those withering sentences which froze the victim into silence, and, being carefully treasured up by his friends, and repeated at intervals, clung to him like a brand. To his own pupils Thompson’s demeanour was the reverse of this. At a time when the older men of the University—with the exception, perhaps, of Professor Sedgwick—were not in sympathy with the rising generation, he made them feel that they had in him a friend who would really stand _in loco parentis_ to them. Somewhat indolent by nature, on their behalf he would spare no trouble; but, on the other hand, he would allow of no interference. ‘He is a pupil of mine, you had better leave him to me,’ he would say to the Seniors, when an undergraduate on his ‘side’ got into trouble; but it may be questioned whether many a delinquent would not have preferred public exposure to the awful half-hour in his tutor’s study by which his rescue was succeeded. Nor did his interest in his pupils cease when they left college. He was always glad to see them or to write to them, and few, we imagine, took any important step in life without consulting him.

When Thompson became Greek Professor, a canonry at Ely was still united to the office—an expedient for augmenting the salary which, we are glad to say, will not trouble future Professors. To most men, trained as he had been, the new duties thus imposed upon him would have been thoroughly distasteful; and we are not sure that he ever took a real pleasure in his residences at Ely. In fact, more than one bitter remark might be quoted to prove that he did not. Notwithstanding, he made himself extremely popular there, both with the Chapter and the citizens, and he soon became a good preacher. It is to be regretted that only one of his sermons—that on the death of Dean Peacock—has been printed; that one is in its way a masterpiece.

He became Master rather late in life, when the habits of a bachelor student had grown upon him; and he lacked the superabundant energy of his great predecessor. But notwithstanding, the twenty years of his Mastership were years of activity and progress; and he took his due share of University and College business. He was alive to the necessity for reform, and the statutes framed in 1872, as well as those which received the royal assent in 1882, owed much to his criticism and support. It should also be recorded that he was an excellent examiner, appreciating good work of very different sorts. Gradually, however, as his health grew worse, he was compelled to give up much that he had been able to do when first elected, and to withdraw from society almost entirely. Yet he did not become a mere lay figure. Even strangers who caught a glimpse in chapel of that commanding presence, the dignity of which was enhanced by singularly handsome features, and silvery hair[115], were compelled to recognize his power. There was an innate royalty in his nature which made his Mastership at all times a reality, and he contrived, from the seclusion of his study, to exert a stronger influence and to maintain a truer sympathy with the Society than Whewell, with all his activity, had ever succeeded in

establishing. His very isolation from the worry and bustle of the world gave authority to his advice; those who came to seek it felt, as they sat by his armchair, that they were listening to one who was not influenced by considerations of the moment, but who was giving them some of the garnered treasures of mature experience.

_9 October, 1886._

COUTTS TROTTER.

The Society of Trinity College had long been aware of the critical condition of their Vice-Master’s health, and his numerous friends in the wider circle of the University had shared their alarm. And yet, though everybody had been expecting the worst for several weeks, the news that the end had really come[116] fell upon the University with the stunning force of a wholly unexpected event. The full extent of the loss can only be measured by time; for the moment we can but feel that the University of Cambridge misses an influence which pervaded and animated every department of her affairs. For the last fifteen years no one has been so completely identified with what may be termed modern Cambridge; no one has been admitted to so large a share in her councils, or has devoted himself with such unremitting diligence to the administration of her complex organization.

Mr Trotter proceeded to his degree in 1859. He was thirty-seventh wrangler, and third in the second class of the Classical Tripos. It is evident, however, that his acquirements must not be measured by his place in these two Triposes, for he was soon after elected to a Fellowship in his college, where, as is well known, the proficiency of candidates is tested by a fresh examination. After his election he took Holy Orders, and devoted himself for a time to active clerical work. For this, however, after a fair trial, he found himself unsuited, and, resigning his curacy, he returned to college. Between the years 1865 and 1869 he spent a considerable portion of his time in German universities. In 1869 he became Lecturer in Natural Science in Trinity College, and in due course succeeded to the Tutorship. In 1874 he was elected a member of the Council of the Senate—a position which he occupied, without interruption, until his death. In early life he had been a staunch Conservative; but, as time went on, his views changed, and he became not only a Liberal in politics, but an ardent University reformer. In the latter capacity he threw himself energetically into the movement for reform which led to the present University and College statutes—to which, in their actual shape, he largely contributed. We have said that he was a Liberal and a reformer. This position placed him, it is almost needless to remark, in direct antagonism to many of those with whom he was called upon to act; but his conciliatory manners, his excellent temper, and his perfect straightforwardness, not only disarmed opposition, but enabled him to make friends even among those who differed from him most widely. In fact, what was sometimes called in jest ‘the Trotterization of the University’ was so complete that he had come to be regarded as indispensable; and his name will be found at one time or another on all the more important Boards and Syndicates. But it was not merely his knowledge of University business and detail that placed him there. He was gifted with an intelligence of extraordinary quickness. He could grasp the bearings of a complicated question swiftly and readily—disentangle it, so to speak, from all that was not strictly essential to it—and while others were still talking about it, doubtful how to act, he would commit to paper a draft of a report which was commonly accepted by those present as exactly resuming the general sense of the meeting. He was in favour of a wide enlargement of University studies, especially in the scientific direction—a course which was impossible without funds; but at the same time no man ever loved his college more dearly than he did—no man held more closely to the old idea of duty to the college as a corporation; and it may be added that no Vice-Master ever dispensed the hospitality incidental to the office with greater geniality.

We have dwelt on Mr Trotter’s University career at some length; but let it not be supposed that he was immersed in the details of University business to the exclusion of other subjects. Though modest and retiring almost to a fault, his interests were wide, and his knowledge extensive and accurate. He had no mean acquaintance with physical science, on which he gave collegiate lectures; he spoke and read several modern languages, and was familiar with their literature; he took great interest in music; he travelled extensively, and had a singularly minute knowledge of out-of-the-way parts of the Alps, and of the little visited country towns of Italy, to which he was attracted partly by their history, partly by their art-treasures. He wrote easily and clearly, though he never cared to cultivate a particularly elegant style; and as a speaker he was always forcible, and sometimes exceedingly happy in the utterance of tersely-worded, epigrammatic sentences, which resumed much thought in few words.