272 WORK AT CAMBRIDGE 



Thackeray drew the character of Harry Foker, and 

 how he went up after the finish of the lecture on 

 " The Four Georges," slapped Thackeray on the back, 

 and said '* Splendid ! old cock, but why didn't you 

 have a pi-anner ? " Those who knew the subject of 

 these notes will picture the appreciative quakes which 

 shook his abundant waistcoat in relating the story. It 

 did one good, I may remark parenthetically, to see 

 Newton laugh. I do not think I ever knew any one — 

 unless it was Arthur Hilton, the inimitable author of 

 the Light Green — whose face, nay, whose whole figure, 

 were (on occasion) more vividly expressive of mirth ; 

 though, it must be confessed, they could equally well 

 express other moods when necessary. It is rather diffi- 

 cult to realise that any one so meticulously careful can 

 have been a whole-hearted lover of fiction, yet such 

 no doubt he was. That wonderful book, "A Dic- 

 tionary of Birds," shows no evidence, save that of a 

 catholicity of reading, by which one might detect it. 

 His was, indeed, a peculiarly tidy mind, and if he were 

 not accurate I do not know who could be thus 

 described. He would take immense pains about a 

 verification, and always had chapter and verse under 

 his hand, like Robertson Smith. There was no shadow 

 of slackness about him, and one instinctively tightened 

 up one's ordinary diction when in his company. He 

 did not like "zoo" or "rhino." I wonder what he 

 would have said could he have seen the legend on a 

 parcel sent me not long ago — " Photos on appro, for 

 repro." ! He held the pen of a good, if not a ready 

 writer, and expressed himself in excellent clear nervous 

 English, though I remember his lamenting to me that 

 he wrote slowly. He was a capital letter- writer, 

 though I became aware of this chiefly from his letters 

 to others, notably those to his lifelong friend Lord 

 Lilford, for in my journeys I was seldom in very 



Lord Huntingfield, his relative, who possesses his beautiful gold-headed 

 Ciine, tells me he was said to have been much like a seal in appearance, 

 and hence Thackeray's name of Foker (Latin Phoca). — F. H. H. G; 



