306 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



In January, 1842 (Cayley's year), he graduated as 10th Senior 

 Optime, and immediately after had the good fortune to be appointed 

 to one of the Worts Travelling Bachelorships, tenable for three years, 

 the greater part of which time he spent on the Continent. 



There is no need to dwell on his travels at this period, for they 

 liave been published in a Memoir by Mr. J. D. Grace, in the " Journal 

 of the Royal Institute of British Architects" (May, 1903). Their 

 bearing was largely on architectural subjects, but Penrosemade a great 

 point of acquiring a practical knowledge of modern foreign languages : 

 French, German, Italian, and Modern Greek. For classical Greek he 

 kept up his Winchester knowledge till the end of his life, and would 

 with delight read and recite, to any fit audience, long passages from 

 Homer. In view, however, of his future calling, he worked very hard 

 at sketches or water-colour paintings of the more noted buildings of 

 the countries he visited, to which he added landscape drawing, having 

 taken lessons from so great an artist as Peter de Wint. 



In 1846 he accepted a commission from the Society of Dilettanti 

 to take exact measurements of the Parthenon and certain other Greek 

 Temples, and the astounding results of his labours in this respect, 

 proving the wholly unexpected fact that in the finest of those 

 unexcelled works of art there was scarcely a single straight line, was 

 made known in his " Principles of Athenian Architecture," published 

 .at the cost of that Society in 1851, of which a second edition was 

 issued in 1888. 



On his return to England he pursued the ordinary routine of his 

 profession, but in 1852 he was appointed by Dean Milman Surveyor 

 of the fabric of St. Paul's Cathedral. He entered enthusiastically on 

 the duties of his post, and it was with extreme mortification that some 

 years after he found his suggestions as to the internal decoration of 

 Wren's masterpiece, the principles of which he had studied as closely 

 as those of the Parthenon, set aside by the Dean and Chapter then in 

 power. He found that all influence in regard to this grandest of our 

 national buildings had passed from him, and so he gradually allowed 

 himself to be occupied with other interests, reverting to the 

 archaeological researches and the astronomical studies of his earlier 

 days, of which a paper left by him gives a brief account, as follows : 



" After a course of study for professional architecture in London, 

 I went to Cambridge (Magdalene College) and resided from 1839 to 

 1842, studying chiefly mathematics, but not astronomy in particular. 

 In 1842 I was appointed Travelling Bachelor of the University, and 

 commenced a course of travel with a view to my profession. In this 

 year I resided several months in Paris, and by the kindness of 

 MM. Arago and Laugier was admitted to the Observatory, and had 

 my astronomical instincts much excited by a view of the planet 



