XIV 



in Cambridge cannot be framed. And it also may help to show that 

 his supremacy in the subjects of his investigations neither made him 

 a recluse, nor limited his other interests, nor restricted his practical 

 usefulness. 



The merits of such a man were recognised by the only means at 

 the disposal of a grateful and appreciative University. He was 

 elected an honorary Fellow of Trinity College on 22nd May, 1872, at 

 the same time as Dr. Lightfoot, Mr. James Spedding, and Professor 

 Clerk Maxwell ; and on llth October, 1875, he was made an ordinary 

 Fellow, a position which he retained for the rest of his life. His 

 friends subscribed for a presentation portrait,* painted by Lowes 

 Dickenson in 1874 ; it now hangs in the College Hall. The simplest 

 of inscriptions is on its frame, but the humorous lines which Clerk 

 Maxwellf wrote at the time should not readily be forgotten. The 

 graver element, seldom absent from his verses, is not entirely 

 repressed even by his wit, and the lines were based upon a deep 

 admiration of the man 



" Whose soul, too large for vulgar space, 

 In n dimensions flourished unrestricted." 



His bust, by Mr. Henry Wiles, was given to Trinity College by a 

 donor who wished to remain anonymous. It was placed in the 

 beautiful library of the College on 3rd December, 1888, an honour 

 that has been conferred daring life in only two other cases Tenny- 

 son and Sedgwick. 



After the new statutes came into operation, the Senate on 27th 

 May, 1886, decided that the Sadlerian Professorship should at once 

 be made subject to the improved provisions, a decision which, though 

 it increased the amount of lecturing required, gave him the benefit 

 of the full stipend. At the same time the Lucasian Professorship, 

 held by Professor Stokes, was also made subject to the new statutes ; 

 and it was currently believed that the Lowndean Professorship would 

 have been included in the proposal had Professor Adams been will- 

 ing to have the change made. There was a wish on the part of 

 members of the University to give some recognition to the glory con- 

 ferred upon the mathematical school by Stokes, Adams, and Cayley ; 

 one possibility remained. The opportunity came in 1888 when 

 Prince Edward (as he was known in Cambridge), afterwards Duke 

 of Clarence, received the degree of LL.D. Such an occasion is 

 customarily marked by the conferment of a number of honorary 

 degrees upon distinguished men ; among them, on this particular 

 occasion, were the three professors who had been colleagues for a 



* A photographic reproduction of the portrait is prefixed to vol. 6 of -the 

 ' C. M. P.' 



t See Campbell and Garnett's ' Life of James Clerk Maxwell,' p. 636. 



