208 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



scrutinise with a very wary eye all the rest that he 

 said. 



I may mention a ludicrous but discreditable 

 incident at a meeting of the Geographical Section of 

 the British Association, which the timely reference of 

 a paper before it was allowed to be read might 

 perhaps have prevented. It was in Cambridge in 

 1862. Sir Roderick Murchison had been nominated 

 as President of the Section, but fell ill just before the 

 meeting, and I was nominated and elected in his stead. 

 Mr. W., a Fellow of King's College, had been 

 entrusted with the MSS of a recently deceased 

 Oriental Professor, including a memoir on the inscrip- 

 tion upon a stone near Aberdeen. It was well known 

 to antiquarians, and had long puzzled them ; the 

 Professor declared it to be Phenician. The title of 

 the Geographical Section then included the already 

 obsolete words "and Philology," so it was technically 

 correct that the paper should be read there. Mr. W. 

 called on me, most desirous, as he said, for the honour 

 of the Association that a paper by so distinguished 

 a University Professor should be read before it. I 

 demurred, saying that it was doubtful whether a single 

 member of the Committee knew a word of Phenician, 

 or were able to discuss its merits. In reply to the 

 question whether that language was really sufficiently 

 well understood to justify a translation, he assured me 

 it was, and mentioned two great works in German, of 

 which I knew nothing, in proof. I still hesitated, 

 but said that if the Committee should agree to accept 

 the communication, I would offer no objection, and 

 they did agree, under the spell of Mr. W.'s eloquence ; 

 so the paper was accepted. 



