LYELL. 309 



fly hunting ' applied to my favourite employment 

 always nettled me." However, Lyell persisted, 

 and when he got back to school he used to work at 

 his favourite subject out of school hours. 



Finding a number of expensive books in his 

 father's library on entomology, with beautiful 

 plates in them, the boy's common sense told him 

 that somebody prized all this knowledge, and that 

 it must be valuable. Oddly enough, he took to 

 reading Linnaeus for descriptions of insects, and 

 hunted up pictures of his captured butterflies in 

 the plates of the more modern authors. Recovered 

 in health, and fairly strong, Lyell was sent at thir- 

 teen years of age to school at Dr. Bayley's, prepa- 

 ratory to being sent to the great school at Win- 

 chester. The new school was at Midhurst, in 

 Sussex, and it had all the demerits of the schools 

 of the day, fighting, fagging, and bullying being 

 rampant. Lyell came off well, although a weak 

 and short-sighted boy. Nevertheless, he stated 

 that the method of teaching got rid of ''most of 

 my natural antipathy to work and extreme absence 

 of mind, and I acquired habits of attention, which 

 were, however, painful to me, and only sustained 

 when I had an object in view." 



It is evident that at this time, 1811-1813, Lyell's 

 heart was not altogether in his classics and mathe- 

 matics, and that he was reading other subjects 

 which were more pleasing to him. At the early 

 age of seventeen, Lyell entered Exeter College, 

 Oxford, and whilst v/orking fairly well at his 



