28 EAKLY DAYS 



stones and hunting in the reject ament of the sea for beetles. 

 His collection of insects is becoming considerable, he devotes 

 every spare minute to it, and has opened a correspondence 

 with several entomologists, both British and foreign. We 

 sent you a Glasgow newspaper last Tuesday, which men- 

 tioned the prizes : in the Natural Philosophy Class, where 

 Joseph gained one prize and worked for three, he was the 

 youngest student of all, and much younger than the majority 

 of those who attend the Anatomical Lectures, where he carried 

 off the single prize which alone is given, among a class often 

 consisting of more than a hundred individuals. These 

 circumstances, which cannot be publicly known, ought yet 

 to be thankfully taken into account by us, when calculating 

 the amount of his labour and of the success which has crowned 

 that labour. I could not help hoping that the dear boy 

 had caught a shred of his grandfather's mantle (far be it 

 from me, by this awkward and tattered simile, however, to 

 imply that the garment is either worn out or cast aside by the 

 honored wearer) when I saw him, earnestly and unprompted 

 during his papa's absence, undertake the task of cataloguing 

 every book in the house. All the names were written down 

 and arranged alphabetically, and part of the fair index was 

 made before his father returned. 



Of his tastes and education, Joseph himself wrote later, I 

 towards the end of the Antarctic voyage, to his aunt, Mary I 

 Turner. The letter, a copy probably touched up by his mother, 

 is dated April 18, 1843. 



You remind me of the times when we used to sit in the 

 study (where probably you now are and where this note may 

 reach you some two months hence) reading Tacitus : at least 

 you and my grandfather reading it and I looking on. 



Alas ! I never had much taste for Latin and Greek, or 

 any of the dead languages ; and (except that I should have 

 the satisfaction of knowing that my father's money was not 

 so much thrown away) I greatly doubt if my having been a 

 good scholar would give me now so much pleasure as you 

 might imagine. What I do really regret is the little attention 

 I paid to Ancient and especially to Modern History. If half 

 the time spent on the Classics had been devoted to those 

 subjects, the knowledge of them would prove a far more 



