Lchrjahrc and Wiinderjahre i:>.~> 



was a generous one, 300 per annum and apparently an extra sum for 

 private tuition. Tertius Galton was no doubt right in impressing upon 

 his son the necessity for accurate record of expenditure even to 

 mistakes of three shillings. But the almost weekly rendering of 

 accounts without a definite allowance does not provide a young man 

 with the same training in monetary affairs as a definite income with 

 freedom to spend within its limits. We cannot help considering that 

 this statement : " Francis Galton, Esq. in account with his Treasurer," 

 must have been a considerable relief to the undergraduate mind. 



The summer vacation spent at Keswick was a very happy one ; 

 Francis Galton was in a most merry frame of mind. The final part of 

 the vacation was overcast by the illness of Tertius Galton, who came 

 down to join his son, and caught a severe cold, which caused his first 

 bad illness, lasting four or five weeks. The tutors were Mathison of 

 Trinity, and Eddis, first Chancellor's medallist and fourth classic in 

 1839, and well-known later as a Queen's Counsel. The members of the 

 reading party besides Galton included Blomefield, Atkinson, Strickland, 

 Young and Cooper 1 . The house Galton stayed at was Browtop, which 

 stands well upon the Thirlmere road before the old turnpike at the 

 junction with the steep road down to the church is reached. Galton 

 had visited at the end of June the Hodgsons and Booths in Birming- 

 ham, and he had made a flying visit with his Aunt Booth to his 

 sister, Lucy Moilliet, at Selby Hall. On July 1 he writes to announce 

 his safe arrival at Keswick to his father : 



" I set off [from Birmingham] by the \ 2 o'clock train in the night and slept 



without once awaking until we were near Preston, we got to Lancaster at 7 



I set off at 8 by mail to Kendal. The town was in a bustle owing to the nomination, 

 flags, trumpets and so forth. I had a very entertaining fellow-traveller; he had a 

 hooked nose, gold spectacles, was a member of the Reform Club, and a ne-plus-ultra 

 radical; he had travelled, and had also been a rowing Cantab. We had a red hot 

 argument on politics, which I firmly believe neither of us knew anything about, but he 

 would talk about them, and as I must answer yes or no, even Bessy will excuse my not 

 assenting to a radical's ideas ; he knew the lakes very well and told me many legends 

 about them. Windermere is said to be a beautiful lake. Wordsworth asserts that it is 

 superior to anything abroad, but I humbly conceive that he thereby shews his patriotism 



1 Blomefield was about the middle of the Junior Optimes in 1843, Atkinson 

 27th Wrangler in the same year and afterwards Director of Public Instruction, 

 Calcutta, Young was Third Class, Classical Tripos and Junior Optime also in 1843; 

 Cooper was a Senior Optime in 1844 ; Strickland was one of the well-known Yorkshire 

 family of Howsham Hall, his tragic end is described in the Memories, p. 64. 



202 



