ii EARLY LIFE IN LONDON 31 



assistant to a country practitioner he saw the dead 

 body of an old villager, who had met with an accident, 

 being carried into his cottage. He went in to see if he 

 could be of any use. The old wife Betty threw up her 

 hands and said, " Thank God it's no worse ! " " Why, 

 Betty," said the doctor, "how could it be worse? 

 Here's John brought home dead on a stretcher." 

 " Why," said she, "he might have been taken ill i' th' 

 autumn, and died i' th' spring." 



My mother and sister soon followed me to London, 

 and we occupied a house in Torrington Square, which 

 accommodated not only our family but also my cousins 

 Frank and William Caldwell Roscoe. Later on we 

 lived in Oval Road, Camden Town, and there also 

 two of my cousins resided with us, the late Henry 

 Roscoe, for many years the head of the firm of Field 

 and Roscoe, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and my cousin 

 Stanley Jevons. Stanley had been at University 

 College School, but soon afterwards attended the 

 classes at the College. I was not long in finding that 

 in him I had to do with a remarkable mind. The first 

 instance of his power was shown by his examining a 

 number of crystallised minerals which I possessed, and 

 giving the crystallographic nomenclature to their faces. 

 I shall have to mention him later. 



We were very intimate with our cousins the 

 Cromptons, who first lived in Endsleigh Street, but 

 when my uncle became a judge the family removed 

 to a large corner house in Hyde Park Square. The 

 judge in his early days had been a great friend of 

 my father's, and was indeed almost like a second 

 father to me. He offered to send me to Cambridge 

 with his son Charles, who afterwards came out fourth 

 wrangler and was Fellow of Trinity, but in those 

 days Cambridge offered no such inducements for the 



