24 AUTOBIOGRArHY. [ch. h. 



good essays in Natural History, often stayed with Henslow, 

 who was his brother-in-law. I visited him at his parsonage 

 on the borders of the Fens [SwafTham Bulbeck], and had 

 many a good walk and talk with him about Natural History. 

 I became also acquainted with several other men older than 

 me, who did not care much about science, but were friends 

 of Henslow. One was a Scotchman, brother of Sir Alexan- 

 der Ramsay, and tutor of Jesus College ; he was a delightful 

 man, but did not live for many years. Another was Mr. 

 Dawes, afterwards Dean of Hereford, and famous for his 

 success in the education of the poor. These men and others 

 of the same standing, together with Henslow, used some- 

 times to take distant excursions into the country, which I 

 was allowed to join, and they were most agreeable. 



Looking back, I infer that there must have been some- 

 thing in me a little superior to the common run of youths, 

 otherwise the above-mentioned men, so much older than 

 me and higher in academical position, would never have 

 allowed me to associate with them. Certainly I was not 

 aware of any such superiority, and I remember one of my 

 sporting friends, Turner, who saw me at work with my 

 beetles, saying that I should some day be a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society, and the notion seemed to me preposterous. 



During my last year at Cambridge, I read with care and 

 profound interest Humboldt's Personal Narrative. This 

 work, and Sir J. HerscheFs Introduction to Hie Study of 

 Natural Philosophy, stirred up in me a burning zeal to add 

 even the most humble contribution to the noble structure 

 of Natural Science. No one or a dozen other books influ- 

 enced me nearly so much as these two. I copied out from 

 Humboldt long passages about Teneriffe, and read them 

 aloud on one of the above-mentioned excursions, to (I 

 think) Henslow, Ramsay, and Dawes, for on a previous oc- 

 casion I had talked about the glories of Tenerift'e, and some 

 of the party declared they would endeavour to go there ; 

 but I think they were only half in earnest. I was, however, 

 quite in earnest, and got an introduction to a merchant in 

 London to enquire about ships; but the scheme was, of 

 course, knocked on the head by the voyage of the Beagle. 



My summer vacations were given up to collecting bee- 



Zoological. In 1887 he printed, for private circulation, an autobiographical 

 sketch, Chapters in my Life, and subsequently some (undated) addenda. The 

 well-known Soame Jenyns was cousin to Mr. Jenyns' father. 



