4 Biographical Account of (Junr, 
was of no long continuance; for in October, 1782, he wes ad+ 
mitted a Member of Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he began 
from that time to reside. He was at first entered as a Pensioner ; 
but, disliking the ordinary discipline and routine of an academieal 
life, he obtained an exemption from those restraints by becoming 
shortly afterwards a Fellow Commoner. ' 
‘It was at this period that he began to be intimately connected 
with Sir Busick Harwood, the late Professor of Anatomy at Came 
bridge, then also a Fellow Commoner of the same College. During 
a long residence in the University, Professor Harwood was fami- 
liarly known to a very extensive circle of acquaintance, by many of 
whom he was perhaps chiefly valued for his social and convivial 
qualities. He had other merits, however, which were of a much 
higher order ; and at the time when he first became acquainted with 
Mr. T., there were some circumstances connected with his history 
and situation, which gave a peculiar interest to his character. 
Sir B. Harwood had gone out early in life to the East Indies, 
where he had obtained a competent fortune as a surgeon; but being 
compelled by ill health to return to his native country, he lost, by the 
misconduct of an agent, nearly the whole of what he had acquired, 
With the most cheerful and manly firmness, he began again his 
eareer of life; and with that view had entered himself at Cam- 
bridge at a much more advanced age than usual, for the purpose of 
obtaining a medical degree, His misfortunes and the spirit with 
which he rose above them, added to his liberal and benevolent dis- 
position, his practical skill in medicine, his knowledge of anatomy. 
and physiology, and his interesting accounts of the remote eoun- 
tries in which he had lived, produced their natural effect upon an 
ingenuous and inquisitive mind; and although there was a great 
disparity in the ages of Mr. Tennant and Professor Harwood, and 
a considerable difference in their tastes and habits, a cordial and 
sincere friendship was soon formed between them. 
Having entered somewhat late at Cambridge, and being des- 
tined for the medical profession, Mr. Tennant did not pay any 
great attention to the regular course of academical reading, or de- 
vote much of his time to the study of mathematics. He acquired, 
however, a general knowledge of the elementary parts of that 
science, and made himself master of the most important proposi- 
tions in Newton’s Principia. But his attention at this period was 
principally directed to chemistry and botany ; and it may be 
recorded as an instance of his early progress in the former science, 
that about the time of his residence at Cambridge he mentioned to 
some of his friends the substance of an experiment respecting heat— 
which he did not make public till more than twenty years after- 
wards. The experiment here alluded to consisted in a mode of 
effecting a double distillation by the same heat, in consequence of a 
diminished pressure of the air; which he communicated to the 
Royal Society in 1814, and forms the subject of his last paper pub- 
lished in the Philosophical Transactions. 
