EARLY YEARS. 7 



relinquished for what seemed to him an obvious duty, 

 though to the end of her life his mother regretted the 

 sacrifice, and doubted whether it had been right to demand 

 it. He set himself to work with a grim determination to 

 make the best of it, and on July 2, 1827, he wrote to his 

 sister Mary, whom he addressed as " Dear Sister soft Sea- 

 urchin : " — 



I have been over to Mr, Estlin for an hour this morning, to 

 learn about the weights and measures used in surgery, and he 

 recommends me to come over every morning, when I can spare 

 time for an hour, to vaccinate children, and to pull out their 

 teeth, and to make up pills and medicines. I think I shall like 

 it pretty well. 



On his fifteenth birthday, in 1828, he was formally 

 apprenticed. He sent a mock account of the proceedings 

 to his sister, adding — 



I am telling you all these things in a humorous way, but I 

 assure you I felt it very much ; and at the end of the day, when 

 I had time for quiet reflection, I formed many resolutions, which 

 I hope I shall have strength and faith to carry into execution. 



The beginning of a professional career did not, how- 

 ever, wholly remove him from the school. But he remains 

 rather to teach than to learn. He discourses to the boys on 

 chemistry, and hears his younger brother, Philip, his Latin. 

 His mind is cultivated through the various lectures at the 

 neighbouring Institution, and the books and reviews which 

 pass in turn through the Reading Society. One of these 

 awakens his early interest with a first attempt at demon- 

 strating the correlation of the physical forces. 



There is a book come into the society (he announces to 

 his "dear old Poll"), Mr. Exley's " New Theory of Matter," 

 by which he explains all the attractions of gravitation, cohe- 

 sion, electricity — chemical, magnetic, etc., — upon the same 

 principles. Mr. Exley read a paper at the Institution, in which 



