Sir H. S. Bleyscri Thompson, Bart. 521 



a private tutor near London, to prepare for the university ; and 

 during two years he made so much progress that, in regard to an 

 academical career, great expectations were raised. He entered 

 at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1829, at the age of twenty, and 

 found time for entomological study under Darwin ; but the 

 allurements of society, and the attractions of the tennis-court 

 were, as concerned studies, sad disturbing influences. He 

 graduated, nevertheless, in honours in 1832 — Senior Optime in 

 the mathematical tripos. 



We are now brought to the unmistakable turning point in Mr. 

 Thompson's life. With eagerness he longed to turn towards 

 Parliament or the diplomatic service of the country, and un- 

 doubtedly in either direction he would have achieved distinction. 

 These inclinations were opposed to his father's wishes. 



And here for one moment we must introduce Mr. Thompson, 

 the father — a particular but kind and reasonable man. When 

 not out shooting, he spent his time perhaps with a few scientific 

 friends in his study amongst books and microscopes, or in his 

 chemical laboratory, where, no doubt, young Thompson early im- 

 bibed the chemical knowledge which he afterwards turned to 

 practical account. Mr. Thompson, the father, was a liberal- 

 minded man, and though he lived to eighty-three, his mind was 

 ever fresh : to the last he delighted in daily consulting with his 

 son on all matters of family and estate business. 



But before settling down at Kirby, and, according to his 

 father's wishes, entering upon the rural life of an English country 

 gentleman, the young Thoinpson travelled on the continent and 

 in Scotland, and spent a summer in the south of France to perfect 

 himself in French. More or less he understood three modern 

 languages. Very few original papers are at our disposal, but we 

 have before us a bundle of letters written by him when abroad 

 to his father ^t home in the years 1830, 1831, 1832, and 1834. 

 These, together with some letters addressed to the writer of this 

 memoir, and two other notes of a confidential nature, are the 

 only cut-and-dry materials on which to work ; the rest has 

 been obtained by many private gleanings, for which hearty 

 acknowledgments are due, and from public sources. In this 

 foreign correspondence we pass over much naive description, and 

 not a little sunny humour. He says we can live in Holland for 

 10/. a month, and buy there a good-looking riding-horse for 9/. 

 or 12Z. He swam across the Rhine where it was a quarter of 

 a mile broad, the current carrying him down three-quarters of a 

 mile ; the time fifteen minutes. At Neuwied an Englishman, 

 named Leith, called the English Hercules, made a bet that in an 

 English " funny " he would skull nine miles up and down all the 

 way before the steam-boat, and did it : the pace then was, steam- 



