434 



NATURE 



{March 8, 1888 



But the Biographical Sketch of Prof. Jenkin is of high 

 interest to all : — first, because it traces the successive ad- 

 vances made by the indomitable perseverance of a brave 

 man in his protracted struggles against difficulties of no 

 common order : — secondly, because it is the work of one 

 of the most remarkable writers of our time, who has thus 

 given fresh proof of the versatility of his genius. The 

 result, however, cannot we think be looked on as wholly 

 satisfactory by those who really knew Prof. Jenkin. The 

 power displayed in the narrative is unquestionable, the 

 various characters stand forward in clear-cut outline, and 

 we seem to see them act out their lives before us as we 

 read. But the weird imagination of the writer has proved 

 too much for him, and some of his " situations " are 

 altogether overcharged. 



The late Prof. Jenkin was essentially a frank, straight- 

 forward, hard-working, clear-headed, practical scientific 

 man : — and it is in this capacity that he will be held in 

 honourable remembrance by the scientific world. What 

 was the character of his grandmother, or what forms of 

 relaxation he himself sought from study or business, are 

 matters of infinitely less importance. Scientific men would 

 have been glad to learn many things not mentioned 

 here : — e.g. the secret of his singularly methodical manage- 

 ment of complicated correspondence : — for it is in such 

 matters that they are, as a rule, most sorely tried as well 

 as most miserably inefficient. But his Biographer is a 

 true Artist, for whom business, method, and even science 

 itself have no attractions ; except in so far as they may 

 serve occasionally to heighten the lights or to darken the 

 shadows of an ideal picture. And it must be acknow- 

 ledged that Mr. Stevenson has, in a very remarkable 

 degree, succeeded in the work as he understood it ; viz. 

 jn tracing the behaviour of that wholly unscientific (and 

 therefore imaginary) structureless germ which renders 

 " the biography of the man .... only an episode in the 

 " epic of the family." 



We are introduced at starting to a powerful but re- 

 pulsive sketch of a family of country bumpkins, sots and 

 sorners :— culminating in a weak but handsome and well- 

 meaning midshipman of "a simplicity that came near to 

 " vacancy." He married, in the West Indies, the daughter 

 of a somewhat lively lady who "would tie her house slaves 

 "to the bed and lash them with her own hand." Of the 

 daughter we are told that, on occasion, she exhibited 

 " characteristic barbarity." The domestic fate of the 

 poor midshipman can of course be foreseen. " His wife, 

 " impatient of his incapacity and surrounded by brilliant 

 " friends, used him with a certain contempt. She was the 

 " managing partner ; the life was hers, not his ; after his 

 " retirement they lived much abroad, where the poor 

 " Captain, who could never learn any language but his 

 " own, sat in the corner mumchance ; and even his son, 

 " carried away by his bright mother, did not recognize 

 "for long the treasures of simple chivalry that lay buried 

 "in the heart of his father." 



Such, we are told, were the parents of Professor 

 Jenkin. Now we would ask in all earnestness cui bono ? 

 What class of readers is likely to be the better of such 

 information as this ? Surely such things, if such there 

 Avere, ought to have been passed over in silence, or at 

 least reserved to adorn, incognito, a new sensational 

 narrative of the Jekyll and Hyde, or Dynamiter, type ! 



This powerful but cold-blooded description of monsters, 

 and their atrocities, is succeeded by another quite as 

 realistic whose motif is the struggle for existence on the 

 part of the impecunious parents. Here, however, we 

 find some relief in the frank boyish letters from young 

 Jenkin, describing to an old school-fellow what he saw in 

 Paris in the memorable days of 1848, For a few pages 

 the merciless scalpel is allowed to remain inactive : — only 

 to be applied again with fresh vigour, but now to Prof. 

 Jenkin himself. All who knew him were aware that in 

 the course of his singularly errant career he had lived 

 much and happily with rough working men, and that he 

 had made no great efforts to acquire that artificial veneer 

 of " manners " (as it is called) which often serves the 

 vilest of our race as a passport into " Society." But 

 surely a single sentence on the subject would have suf- 

 ficed any reasonable biographer ! Why this Pre- 

 Raphaelite minuteness and copiousness of detail, except 

 to add to the miserable heap of " Things one would 

 rather not have said"? We gladly leave this aspect of 

 the book with the remark that it affords fresh proof that 

 literary men, even of the highest rank, are not necessarily 

 qualified to be writers of biography, specially of scientific 

 biography. 



But there are statements of a darker stamp, such as in 

 fact tend to impeach the sterling honesty which was one 

 of the prominent features of Jenkin's character. The 

 Biographer's story of his Class Certificate in Engineer- 

 ing will, we are certain, find no credence vv ith any one 

 who knew Prof. Jenkin. Under the conditions stated, 

 nothing worthy the name of certificate could have been 

 given by him. The story is susceptible, however, of an 

 easy explanation. The Biographer has already told a 

 similar tale of himself regarding his relations to another 

 of the Edinburgh Professors. We have therefore only 

 a recurrence of one of those half sportive, half serious, 

 fits of introspection which form part of his literary art. 

 Still, we do not like to meet with such things in such a 

 connexion. 



An exceedingly interesting and graphic chapter gives, in 

 Jenkin's own words, a sketch of the busy times he had 

 in laying and lifting submarine cables in the Mediterra- 

 nean and in the Atlantic. His capacity for hard work, 

 and his readiness of resource, appear at once from this 

 singularly modest narrative. Appended to the Biography 

 we have a brief but comprehensive summary of Jenkin's 

 electrical work, drawn up by Sir William Thomson. 

 From this we cannot make extracts. It must be read as 

 a whole. Col. Fergusson has added an excellent sketch of 

 Jenkin's services to general sanitation. Had Jenkin done 

 nothing but this, his name would still be well worthy of 

 remembrance as that of a signal benefactor of humanity. 



The othsr contents of these volumes, so far as they 

 can be discussed here, consist of reprints of some of 

 Jenkin's published papers. Particularly interesting and 

 valuable are two from the North British Review :—\h& 

 first on Lucretius, a?id the Atomic Theory, the second on 

 Darwin, and the Origin of Species. Both have important 

 bearings on questions at present prominently before the 

 public, so that it is specially convenient to have them in 

 this easily accessible form. From the second we quote 

 but a single sentence, of itself quite sufficient to confirn^ 

 the above statements : — 



