76 VISIT TO SPITZBEEGEN 



In the meantime Newton's father had died, and his 

 home at Elveden was sold to the Maharaja Dhuleep Singh. 

 ' We are much disappointed at the price this place 

 fetched. His Highness got it 5000 under the actually 

 appraised value, and I dare not say how much under 

 what we put it at ; so that our Sikh has not proved such 

 a great find after all. " Newton had the greatest affection 

 for the place where he had been brought up, and he 

 could never be persuaded to revisit it. Ten years later, 

 when he was staying with Lord Walsingham at Merton : 



Dhuleep Singh came over and we all went to Stanford 

 Mere. About a month before he went shooting ducks 

 there and wading lost a diamond said to be worth between 

 2000 and 3000 from a ring, and this he wants to find. 

 Accordingly they have let the waters off to lay dry the 

 line he took, and the soil is to be taken up, stacked like 

 peat and sifted ! . . . Really in a very delicate way he 

 asked me if I would go and stay at Elden, saying he 

 should be glad to see any of the family, but I, of course, 

 told him there would be as much pain as pleasure in 

 doing so, and this he seemed fully to appreciate. 



Excepting a short visit to Belgium in the summer of 

 that year, the greater part of 1863 was spent in family 

 business and in moving his belongings and his own and 

 Wolley's collections to Cambridge, which was thence- 

 forward to be his permanent home. 



When some thirty years hence a discerning Minister 

 of Public Worship ascertains that you will be the right 

 man in the right place if seated on the throne of Canter- 

 bury (or say York, if you are not too fastidious), you will 

 then find that the sifting of thirty years' Natural History 

 accumulations is a labour of that kind which people who 

 are not afflicted with hay-fever say " is not to be sneezed 

 at." You will therefore I hope duly value these few 

 lines, written amid an abomination of desolation. Tow 

 was perhaps known in the days of Hercules, but cotton 



