COLLEGE LIFE. 93 



and friend George Forster in the generalisation of my views 

 on nature and in the strengthening and development of that 

 which had already dawned in me before those happy days of 

 intimate friendship. On these two evenings, as the current 

 of my thoughts flowed back to the past, and I reflected with 

 sadness on the rapid deterioration of my powers, I was 

 more than ever reminded of the remarkable resemblances and 

 contrasts existing between Forster and myself; we held in- 

 deed the same political opinions, and mine, though in no 

 way derived from Forster, since they were formed long be- 

 fore my acquaintance with him, were yet strengthened and 

 matured under his influence ; it was in company with him, 

 the circumnavigator of the globe, that I first beheld the sea 

 at a time when I had not the remotest expectation that 

 I should myself only twelve years later be sailing in the 

 Southern Ocean ; my visit to London in company with him 

 during the lifetime of Cook's widow, when on the same occa- 

 sion I, a mere youth of twenty-one, received so much kindness 

 at the hands of Sir Joseph Banks ; in my expedition to Siberia 

 I trod the same shore of Samara, whence the elder Forster 

 had sent to Linnaeus at Upsala the rare specimen of wheat 

 growing wild, I visiting the country in 1829, while Rein- 

 hold Forster, accompanied by his son George, then a boy, 

 was there in 1765, four years previous to my birth; I was in- 

 vited by the Emperor Alexander through Count RumanzorT, in 

 1812, to undertake an extensive scientific expedition through 

 the interior of Asia, in the same way as George Forster had 

 "been requested by the Empress Catherine to undertake a 

 voyage round the world with Admiral Mulowski for purposes 

 of scientific investigation ; similar disappointments awaited 

 our most cherished hopes, for both expeditions were abandoned 

 owing to the breaking out of war, in the one case with the 

 French, in the other with the Turks ! How greatly have I 

 t>een excited by the awakening of these early reminiscences 

 through your valued gift ! The whole of the sixth book is 

 masterly but very sad; the saddest of all to me are those 

 lines at the bottom of page 251, Part II., 1 and yet such 



1 This passage refers to the part taken by Forster in the deliberations 

 against the citizens and officials of Mayence who would not take the new 



