CHAPTER IV. 



CHOICE OF A PROFESSION, 1830. 



DURING his last session at college, his mind was much 

 exercised with anxious thoughts about his future. The 

 following letter to his uncle, Lord Medwyn, will show 

 the course to which these thoughts were pointing : 



' January 30th, 1830. 



'My DEAR UNCLE, 



"... I have in my possession memoranda 

 written about four years ago, which contain the very 

 sentiments I still feel, and which you have begun, the 

 first of my relations, to entertain with almost equal force. 

 Had circumstances been then what they are now, there is 

 little doubt the Cambridge plan would have been followed. 

 But now, though all things are permitted me, still all 

 things are not expedient. I feel that the time has in the 

 fullest sense passed. Perhaps it may be news to you that 

 my earliest wish towards a profession was for the Church 

 of England ; when I was eight years old, I began to 

 compose sermons, and long before my thoughts were 

 directly turned to science I was warm on the scheme of 

 the Church. In November 1822, I seriously proposed 

 becoming a clergyman, but was dissuaded from it by my 

 family ; and the dislike naturally entertained by one so 

 tenderly nurtured of deserting a beloved home, country, 

 and friends, added to the strenuous advice of my revered 

 father, finally determined me to give it up, though with 

 a gradual struggle of years. Law was the choice of my 

 father, and, on the principle of extinction of others 



