ticular, was always inviting us and my diary is filled with entries of 

 luncheons and dinners in his rooms or in Hall, but we were also en- 

 tertained in King's, Christ's, John's, and Magdalen Colleges. Oscar 

 Browning, a Fellow of King's, was then and for many years afterward, 

 famous for his hospitahty and in his rooms we met Oscar Wilde, who 

 made himself very disagreeable and I "wrote him down an ass." He 

 was then in the stage when Gilbert ridiculed him and the whole 

 aesthetic movement in Patience \ his abilities as a writer were not yet 

 known. 



Two lasting friendships that we made that spring in Cambridge were 

 with Professor Alfred Newton, a famous ornithologist, and Adam 

 Sedgwick, then a lowly B. A., who was Balfour's assistant and even- 

 tually his successor. Newton, already white haired, was also a fellow of 

 Magdalen College and his friends used to gather in his rooms on Sun- 

 day evenings. Sometimes these gatherings were quiet, even dull; more 

 commonly, the talk was brilliant and fascinating. Until Newton's death 

 in 1907, he continued to be one of my kindest friends. He was quite 

 lame, but was a genial old soul, who loved a good story and had many 

 of his own to tell. When the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science met in Cambridge in 1904, Newton invited me to be his 

 guest at Magdalen during the meeting. I had not thought of going, 

 until I received word from Cambridge that the old man really attached 

 importance to my attendance at the meeting. "He keeps saying, 'I want 

 Scott,' so do come." I felt compelled to go and had a memorable ex- 

 perience. 



Some time during our stay in Cambridge, Newton expressed to 

 Osborn his high appreciation of us both. Osborn said: "That's all very 

 well, but yet you refuse to recognize our degrees," to which Newton 

 replied: "If you send over many more men like you and Scott, we'll 

 be compelled to recognize them." After more than fifty years New- 

 ton's prophecy remains unfulfilled and the ban is still maintained. 



To Osborn and myself, Cambridge, in those days, signified chiefly 

 Francis Maitland Balfour, to whom my letters refer so often. It was to 

 work under his guidance that we had gone to Cambridge and it was 

 his great reputation that had drawn Osborn out of his reluctant father's 

 office and across the Atlantic. Though only twenty-eight at the time 

 when we were with him, he was already the first embryologist in 

 Europe, standing head and shoulders above all his colleagues. We 

 heartily concurred in this verdict and agreed in thinking him the 

 ablest man with whom we had ever been in association, not even 



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