174 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



have had his Deanery if he had left college and married. 

 The party when I arrived was a large one, consisting of 

 Sir John and Lady Herschel and two daughters, Mr. 

 and Mrs. Vernon Harcourt, Colonel and Mrs. Sabine, 

 Sir W. Hamilton of Dublin, Professor Sedgewick, Mr. 

 Phillips, and Mr. Kuppfer from Russia. I wish, my 

 own darling, you had been here. God bless you, and keep 

 you and our sweet baby. Over again, Farewell ! ' 



' DEA.NERY, ELY, Monday. 



' . . . When you get this I shall be on the salt sea, on 

 the way home to you. Everything has gone on so well. 

 I meant to have written you a long letter, but the quiet 

 and rest of Ely are even more seductive than the pressure 

 of business at Cambridge. But my heart was gladdened, 

 and cheerfully gladdened, this morning with two letters. 



' . . . I told you what a remarkable person Sir W. 

 Hamilton of Dublin is, but it is impossible to give you a 

 correct idea of his character. He is a fair, fat, little 

 round-faced man, as playful and simple as a child, with 

 a good deal of Irish humour. He is the first mathema- 

 tician in this country, and very metaphysical in his habits 

 of thought. He is so full of his subject that he fastens 

 upon anyone that will let him talk about equations, and 

 yet this abstract turn of mind alternates with the 

 liveliest fits of poetic feeling. He is always vibrating 

 between an equation and a sonnet. You will not require 

 evidence of the former, but I enclose a specimen of the 

 latter in his own handwriting, which is, I think, a fair 

 specimen of the sonnet style for those who value such 

 things* The pure sonnet style is, I believe, very rare. I 

 consider it a very great curiosity the three persons 

 alluded to are Sir J. Herschel, Sir W. H., and myself 

 so please preserve it carefully, arid do not fold it,' 



On his return to Scotland, August was spent quietly 

 with Mrs. Forbes and his young child at Fettercairn, 

 the place of his elder brother, who was then absent. In 

 this retirement he wrote a paper on * Glaciers' for the 



