LIFE IN BRISTOL. 31 



Dagon, the piano coming in only second, as Dagonella. 

 The microscope also was busily employed in the evenings 

 in the drawing-room, and Dr. Carpenter began a series of 

 investigations into the microscopical structure of shells, 

 which first made known his capacities for independent 

 research. The chapel and its organ were not forgotten. 

 And the whole was crowned in 1841 by the birth of a son. 

 Here is a glimpse of his life, as it was shaping itself in the 

 spring of 1842, when he was just finishing his winter courses 

 of lectures : — 



I have been working a good deal with the microscope, and 

 have made some discoveries which I think quite worthy of 

 being communicated to the Royal Society. I am also busy in 

 preparing our collection of psalm-tunes, which we are about to 

 publish. There have been several good reviews of my " Physi- 

 ology." Little Billy is thriving very well, and is really a very 

 intelligent, good-tempered child. I am glad he does not take 

 after his papa in the latter particular. 



III. 



Dr. Carpenter had now acquired a reputation as a 

 scientific writer, which justified him in becoming a can- 

 didate, in the summ.er of 1842, for the Professorship of the 

 Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. 

 Many of the eminent teachers of the faculty would have 

 welcomed such a colleague ; but the chair was not in their 

 gift. The election lay with the Lord Provost and the 

 Town Council, who regarded his Unitarianism as a fatal 

 disqualification for the teaching of physiology, and declined 

 even to consider his claims. It was a bitter disappoint- 

 ment to him ; and the repetition of it some years later, 

 when he again came forward as candidate for the post 

 vacated by the lamented death of his friend, Professor 



