22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY/ [Ch. II. 



I once saw in his company r in the streets of Cambridge 

 almost as horrid a scene as could have been witnessed during 

 the French Revolution. Two body-snatchers had been arrested, 

 and whilst being taken to prison had been torn from the 

 constable by a crowd of the roughest men, who dragged them 

 by their legs along the muddy and stony road. They were 

 covered from head to foot with mud, and their faces were 

 bleeding either from having been kicked or from the stones ; 

 they looked like corpses, but the crowd was so dense that I 

 got only a few momentary glimpses of the wretched creatures. 

 Never in my life have I seen such wrath painted on a man's 

 face as was shown by Henslow at this horrid scene. He tried 

 repeatedly to penetrate the mob ; but it was simply impossible. 

 He then rushed away to the mayor, telling me not to follow 

 him, but to get more policemen. I forget the issue, except 

 that the two men were got into the prison without being killed. 



Henslow's benevolence was unbounded, as he proved by his 

 many excellent schemes for his poor parishioners, when in 

 after years he held the living of Hitcham. My intimacy with 

 such a man ought to have been, and I hope was, an inestimable 

 benefit. I cannot resist mentioning a trifling incident, which 

 showed his kind consideration. Whilst examining some pollen- 

 grains on a damp surface, I saw the tubes exserted, and in- 

 stantly ruslied off to communicate my surprising discovery to 

 him. Now I do not suppose any other professor of botany 

 could have helped laughing at my coming in such a hurry to 

 make such a communication. But he agreed how interesting 

 the phenomenon was, and explained its meaning, but made mo 

 clearly understand how well it was known ; so I left him not 

 in the least mortified, but well pleased at having discovered for 

 myself so remarkable a fact, but determined not to be in such 

 a hurry again to communicate my discoveries. 



Dr. "Whewell was one of the older and distinguished men 

 who sometimes visited Henslow, and on several occasions I 

 walked home with him at night. Next to Sir J. Mackintosh 

 he was the best converser on grave subjects to whom I ever 

 listened. Leonard Jenyns,* who afterwards published some 

 good essays in Natural History, often stayed with Henslow, 

 who was his brother-in-law. 1 visited him at his parsonage 

 on the borders of the Fens [Swaffham Bulbeck], and had many 



* Mr. Jenjms (now Blomefiekl) described the fish for the Zoology of the 

 Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle; and is author of a long series of papers, chiefly 

 Zoological. In 1887 he printed, for private circulation, an autobiographical 

 sketch, Chapters in my Life, and subsequently some (undated) addenda. 

 The well-known Soame Jenyns was cousin to Mr. Jenyns' father. ' 



