MEMOIR. xix 
ought to make any pretensions to be considered a reader who 
had not twice gone through” that book. In connection with this, 
although departing for a moment from the order of time, it is 
interesting to note that the high estimate of Gibbon’s immortal 
work which he formed thus early was enhanced by his maturer 
judgment. For some months prior to his death his spare time at 
evening was given to the re-perusal of that book, and he had 
reached the middle of the last volume when death closed the 
unwearied eyes in “unawakening sleep.” He became “the old 
man eloquent” as he talked about the more suggestive chapters, 
and followed the great historian in his stately and well-ordered 
march through the most pregnant ages of the world’s history ; 
while the majestic and luminous charm of the style made him turn 
back again and again to the finer passages. He expressed chronic 
irritation at Dean Milman’s notes, which, while they sought to 
qualify, failed to shake the accuracy of the statements or the 
general soundness of the conclusions of a work which Cardinal 
Newman has commended as the most adequate history of the 
Church yet written. Besides attending classes for languages and 
composition, Bates joined a glee club and learned to play the 
guitar, accompanying himself to favourite songs. His love of 
melody, whether in music or poetry, never left him, and on the 
rare occasions that his health permitted he refreshed himself at 
the opera ; his catholic tastes enabling him to enjoy the music of 
composers as diverse as Wagner and Sullivan. 
But above and outside the manifold studies that informed his 
boyhood, he was a born naturalist. Some kindred spirits whom he 
met at the Mechanics’ Institute—two of whom, Mr. John Plant, 
Curator of the Salford Museum, and his brother James, survive— 
quickened his zeal as a collector. Scouring the country round 
Leicester for specimens, he began, like most boys, with butterflies, 
then forsook these for beetles ; sending accounts of his captures to 
the Zoologist, to the first number of which he contributed “ Notes 
on Coleopterous Insects frequenting damp places” (January 3rd, 
1843, vol. i, p. 115): His “happy hunting grounds” were the lanes 
and recesses of Charnwood Forest, “owned by the old Earl of 
Stamford, who did not strictly preserve for game,” thus affording 
access to the woods and dells where insect life abounded ; and there 
he gathered knowledge of wild flowers as well as prizes for his 
cabinets. Enlisting his brother Frederick, who is himself no 
undistinguished entomologist, as willing helper, he escaped to the 
