ch. ii.] CAMBRIDGE. 23 



courteous manners ; yet, as I have seen, he could be roused by 

 any bad action to the warmest indignation and prompt action. 



I once saw in his company in the streets of Cambridge 

 almost as horrid a scene as could have been witnessed during 

 the French Revolution. Two body-snatchers had been ar- 

 rested, and whilst being taken to prison had been torn from 

 the constable by a crowd of the roughest men, who dragged 

 them by their legs along the muddy and stony road. They 

 were covered from head to foot with mud, and their faces 

 were bleeding either from having been kicked or from the 

 stones ; they looked like corpses, but the crowd was so dense 

 that I got only a few momentary glimpses of the wretched 

 creatures. Never in my life have I seen such wrath painted 

 on a man's face as was shown by Henslow at this horrid 

 scene. He tried repeatedly to penetrate the mob ; but it 

 was simply impossible. He then rushed away to the mayor, 

 telling me not to follow him, but to get more policemen. I 

 forget the issue, except that the two men were got into the 

 prison without being killed. 



Henslow's benevolence was unbounded, as he proved by 

 his many excellent schemes for his poor parishioners, when 

 in after years he held the living of Hitcham. My intimacy 

 with such a man ought to have been, and I hope was, an 

 inestimable benefit. I cannot resist mentioning a trifling 

 incident, which showed his kind consideration. Whilst ex- 

 amining some pollen-grains on a damp surface, I saw the 

 tubes exserted, and instantly rushed off to communicate my 

 surprising discovery to him. Now I do not suppose any 

 other professor of botany could have helped laughing at my 

 coming in such a hurry to make such a communication. 

 But he agreed how interesting the phenomenon was, and 

 explained its meaning, but made me clearly understand how 

 well it was known ; so I left him not in the least mortified, 

 but well pleased at having discovered for myself so remarka- 

 ble a fact, but determined not to be in such a hurry again 

 to communicate my discoveries. 



Dr. Whewell was one of the older and distinguished men 

 who sometimes visited Henslow, and on several occasions I 

 walked home with him at night. Next to Sir J. Mackintosh 

 he was the best converser on grave subjects to whom I ever 

 listened. Leonard Jenyns,* who afterwards published some 



^ * Mr. Jenvns (now Blomefield) described the fish for the Zoology of the 

 Voyage of jf. M. 8. Beagle ; and is author of a long series of papers, chiefly 



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