318 HUXLEY. [1884. 



been filled. Among the interesting guests whom Mr 

 Spottiswoode delighted to gather round him at Combe 

 Bank, none seemed equal to the host himself. In the 

 touching tribute to his memory by Professor Huxley, 

 in a Notice to the Royal Society, no words were ever 

 more appropriate : " He always seemed to me the 

 embodiment of that exquisite ideal of a true gentle- 

 man which Geoffrey Chaucer drew five hundred years 

 ago: 



" ' . . . He lovede chyvalrye, 



Trouthe and honour, fredom and curtesie. 



And though that he was worthy he was wys, 



And of his port as meke as is a mayde. 



He never yit no vilonye ne sayde 



In al his lyf unto no maner wight. 



He was a verray perfight gentil knight.' " 



In the mournful assemblage round his grave in West- 

 minster Abbey, none were more conscious of the loss 

 to the world of science, and of their own personal loss, 

 than the two sorrowing neighbours from Darent-Hulme. 



Among relics carefully kept, we come upon a little 

 pencil note which had been passed on to our geologist 

 from Professor Huxley at his first council meeting as 

 President of the Royal Society, with the words " I 

 have just nominated you a Vice-President. Will you 

 be so kind as to serve ? " An affirmative nod was the 

 reply. 



Prestwich had for many years entertained the idea 

 of publishing a treatise on Geology, and at last his 

 dream was about to be realised, as in February 1884 

 he signed an agreement with the Clarendon Press, in 

 which he engaged to write a text-book on Geology in 

 two volumes. This was undertaken at a fitting time : 

 there had been many warnings that the burden of 



